RFE/RL – Armenian Oppositionist’s Sister Fired From Government Job

Lilit Ghazarian had joined the Centre for Drug and Medical Technology Expertise over 30 years ago and has held the senior position there since 2004. She was notified on Wednesday that the position has been abolished.

Ghazarian said on Thursday that the center’s director, Arayik Bagharian, told her to resign for “known reasons” the day after the June 7 parliamentary elections in which her brother Edgar ran as a candidate of the main opposition Strong Armenia alliance. She said she refused to quit and was fired as a result.

“I can only attribute those known reasons to him because no mistakes, omissions or shortcomings specifically related to my activities have been recorded,” Ghazarian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.

“My brother also held various [government] positions … but that didn’t affect my professional activities,” she said. “I always did my job as properly as possible.”

Edgar Ghazarian had served as a provincial governor and Armenia’s ambassador to Poland during former President Serzh Sarkisian’s rule. He became the chief of the Constitutional Court staff after Sarkisian was toppled in the 2018 “velvet revolution.” He lost that post in 2020 before becoming a vocal critic of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian. Edgar Ghazarian joined Strong Armenia in the run-up to the disputed elections.

“The only reason for Lilit Ghazarian’s dismissal is her being my sister,” he wrote on Facebook. “She has shown political restraint and has not made any public or political statements.”

Lilit Ghazarian claimed that Baghrian’s “illegal” decision to lay her off was ordered by Health Minister Anahit Avanesian, who is also a senior member of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party. Avanesian denied that on Thursday.

“As for those manipulations, if they were true, Lilit Ghazarian would have been fired five or six years ago,” she told journalists.

Meanwhile, Baghrian, the agency’s director, refused to talk to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service when contacted by phone.

According to Armenian media reports, quite a few other individuals holding managerial positions in the public sector have likewise been told to resign or sacked in recent months because of being related to oppositionists or critical of the government. The Yerevan daily Hraparak reported on Friday that the director of a rural kindergarten in the southern Ararat province married to an opposition party member is being pressured by the provincial administration to step down.

Earlier this month, a local government employee in another Armenian village claimed to have been forced to resign after dismissing as misleading the official election results in her community.

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