News.am, Armenia
April 8 2020
10:55, 08.04.2020
Author: Kalantarian Kevo
Karabakh Police receive applications from 101 citizens
News.am, Armenia
March 31 2020
21:28, 31.03.2020
Administrative Court accepts for proceedings Lydian Armenia ex-employees’ lawsuit against Police
News.am, Armenia
April 4 2020
17:10, 04.04.2020
Armenian military denies Azerbaijani reports on opening gunfire
15:08, 3 April, 2020
YEREVAN, APRIL 3, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian Ministry of Defense has denied Azerbaijani reports on Armenian armed forces allegedly having opened fire at Azerbaijani positions, villages and farmers.
“Azerbaijani official information platforms are circulating the completely false and made up information of the border service regarding the border situation,” Armenia’s military spokesperson Shushan Stepanyan said, adding that the Azerbaijani border service had released similar disinformation again on April 1 and now on April 3.
Stepanyan said Azerbaijan is trying to conceal its own actions aimed at destabilizing the border situation. A similar disinformation campaign was also carried out by Azerbaijan prior to its failed subversive incursion attempt on March 30.
“We reiterate that the situation at the Armenia-Azerbaijan border is calm. The Armenian Armed Forces will take only adequate steps,” she said.
Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
Court to examine Armenia ex-President Kocharyan attorney’s lawsuit against National Security Service
News.am, Armenia
April 1 2020
15:32, 01.04.2020
Defeating Systemic Corruption? Anti-Corruption Measures in Post-Revolution Ukraine and Armenia
Modern Diplomacy, EU
By Aram Terzyan
Ukraine and Armenia offer case studies on the challenges of recovering from post-Soviet authoritarian legacy, fraught with rampant corruption. As a matter of fact, systemic corruption has long condemned the two post-Soviet countries to a vicious circle of underdevelopment, bad governance and inability to implement fundamental economic and political reforms. Not surprisingly, the anti-corruption reforms have been put at the heart of post-revolution state-building in both countries.
Notably, Ukraine’s former President Petro Poroshenko’s government significantly reduced the corruption, particularly in the gas, banking, and government procurement sectors. As a sign of moving the fight against corruption to the highest possible policy agenda, the Ukrainian government introduced the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized AntiCorruption Prosecutor’s Office NABU as well as Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) established in 2015 with the participation of civil society and donor countries. Yet, the effectiveness of these institutions has been questioned by several observers, pointing to insufficiency of anti-corruption measures amidst unrelenting efforts by power groups to retain their outsized influence over law enforcement and justice. In essence, Poroshenko’s steady decline as a political powerhouse significantly owed to his failure to eradicate corruption.
Meanwhile, VolodymyrZelensky’s promises of defeating rampant corruption resonated with Ukrainians, who placed a great deal of faith in his ‘game-changing’ agenda.
The Rada’s first day was marked with the adoption of important pieces of anti-corruption legislation, including the removal immunity from prosecution for MPs and the proposal to provide the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) with the right to undertake autonomous surveillance.
Moreover, Zelensky’s anti-corruption efforts resulted in investigations and subsequent arrests of some of President Poroshenko’s associates, including Oleg Hladkovsky, a top Defense official; a People’s Front party MP and the former head of the Rada’s defense committee SerhiiPashinsky; ex-deputy minister for the occupied territories Yuri Hrymchak; and Poroshenko Bloc MP YaroslavDubnevych, etc. Furthermore, Zelensky put the High Anti-Corruption Court into action, that passed a bill reinstating criminal liability for the illicit enrichment of officials.
Similarly, the post-revolution government in Armenia criminalized illicit enrichment and intensified its anti-corruption campaigns. The government pushed for a series of high-profile trials against former senior officials, most notably ex-president Robert Kocharyan, former high-ranking officials Manvel Grigoryan, Aram Harutyunyan, Seyran Ohanyan and others. This extended to former defense minister and outstanding former ruling Republican Party member, Vigen Sargsyan, who was charged with “abuse of power,” as well as to former Chief of Police Alik Sargsyan – charged with covering up illegal post-election crackdown on opposition protesters in Yerevan in 2008 and with destroying evidence of the “overthrow of the constitutional order” led by then President Kocharyan. However, these arrests and investigations have not yet led to court rulings. Essentially, both Pashinyan’s and Zelensky’s fight against corruption has so far focused on punishing former governments’ members or associates. The question remains if the anti-corruption measures will move beyond selective prosecution of former officials to the unequivocal application of “zero tolerance for corruption” principle.
This, in turn comes down to the furtherance of democratic reforms , leading to the advancement of good governance practices and eradication of the systemic corruption in both countries.Some critics have been skeptical about the effectiveness of anti-corruption reforms in these countries, positing that while governments embark on “crowd-pleasing affairs,” much needs to be done to address the more systemic problems that the new governments inherited.
Both Zelensky and Pashinyan have placed a special emphasis on defeating judicial corruption. While former Ukrainian President Poroshenko hailed the judicial reform as “the mother of all reforms,” there was not much to reinforce government’s pledges of fundamental reforms.
In an effort to rectify this, in autumn 2019, President Zelensky embarked on judicial reforms. More specifically, he dismissed the High Qualification Council of Judges (the body responsible for attestation and selection of judges), announced plans to reload the Higher Council of Judges (the highest self-governance body of judges) and halved the number of Supreme Court judges. Remarkably, while the Venice Commission, an advisory body of the Council of Europe, praisedZelensky’s government’s judicial reform, it expressed concern over certain aspects of the reform, pertaining to “important issues of the rule of law” in Ukraine. The Commission criticised the situation, where the politicians are seen to get too much power to determine whether the sitting judges remain in their position or not. Similarly, the judicial corruption is one of the most harrowing challenges facing Pashinyan’s government. Following the controversial release of second President Robert Kocharyan in May 2019, Pashinyan contended that the judiciary is a remnant of the former corrupt system which would cook up conspiracies against the Armenian people. As a result, he called for a mandatory “vetting” of all judges to the all the courts in the country because of their ties to the previous regime. The tension between Pashinyan’s government and the “remnants” of the former regime reached a point, where the Armenian parliament adopted a bill on holding a referendum on suspending the powers of a majority members of the Constitutional Court. Pashinyan would largely treat the current Constitutional Court as an impediment to completing the revolution in Armenia. More specifically, it was regarded as an instrument that prevented the people from exercising their right to form a government in the country in the 1996, 1998, 2003, 2008, 2013 presidential elections. Notably, PACE co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Armenia, called on Armenian political players to refrain from actions and statements that could be perceived as exerting pressure on the judiciary. Essentially, Pashinyan threw his weight behind changing the Constitutional Court, contending that the latter represents the corrupt regime of Serzh Sargsyan, rather than the people of Armenia. Furthermore, he regarded the opponents of the referendum as “anti-state” forces.
Overall, the judicial reform remains as big challenge in both countries, as its success is critical to breaking with the authoritarian legacies.
Based on the comparative analysis of anti-corruption strategies in developing countries, there are three main observations to make regarding Ukraine’s and Armenia’s trajectories.
First, in both countries corruption has been deeply entrenched and a result of the post-soviet authoritarian legacy. Essentially corruption has permeated every section of society and become a way of life in both countries . A major impediment to democratic state building, including fight against corruption in Armenia and Ukraine is related to prevailing post-Soviet “informality”. The use of informal networks and connections in exchanges of favours, gift-giving along with other informal activities have been been deeply ingrained in both Ukrainian and Armenian societies. Therefore, the state apparatus, as well as education, healthcare, judiciary and law enforcement have long been dominated by informality.Thus, quite often the institutions that have been set up to fight corruption run up against deeply entrenched habits of graft in society and politics. Even though it would be an oversimplification to contend that Armenian and Ukrainian societies are congenitally hooked on graft as a way of life, the “culture of corruption” will not disappear overnight. Studies show that Ukrainian citizens tend to “condemn” high-level corruption” yet “regard petty corruption as a justifiable evil”. As a matter of fact, countries with long histories of informal illiberal practices and corruption often face tremendous challenges in eradicating these blights .Therefore eradicating the culture of corruption and informality should be an urgent priority on the reform agendas of new Ukrainian and Armenian governments.
Second, one of the biggest challenges of anti-corruption reforms in developing and particularly transitional countries is the persistence and prevalence of corrupt practices by political and economic elites. More specifically, the residual influence of oligarchy presents a threats to the fight against systemiccorruption. Clearly, the political elite’s robust commitment to eradicating systemic corruption is indispensable. Meanwhile, inconsistencies and the weakness of a commitment lead to a situation, under the banner of “zero tolerance for corruption” governments keep playing a “tolerant corruption” game. Although political will may not be sufficient, it is a necessary condition to defeat corruption. The case of Romania demonstrates that the political will to defeat corruption may well make up the absence of a tradition of the rule of law and democracy. More specifically, the European Union pressure, along with the electoral pressure and the political will of the domestic political elite combined to ensure the establishment of the rule of law and defeating corruption in the Romanian judiciary .
Third, external factors including the anti-corruption programs of international donors have proved conducive to the fight against corruption. While Ukraine’s choice for Europe and fervent desire to irreversibly depart from the orbit of the Russian influence is a crucial impetus to defeat corruption, Armenia’s centrality in the Russia-led socio-political order has remained intact. Nevertheless, Pashinyan’s government’s anti-corruption efforts prompt to posit that international efforts may well resonate with prevalent social norms in Armenia. A question remains if the legitimacy of the anti-corruption norms promoted particularly by the European Union will lead to their smooth implementations in Ukraine and Armenia.
Last but not least, the lessons from the successful anticorruption crusades of Singapore and Hong Kong show the need for anticorruption reform initiatives to be participatory and inclusive of all stakeholders including public and private sectors as well as civil society. Thus, it is absolutely essential for Armenian and Ukrainian civil society organizations to further develop institutional and professional capacity to contribute to anti-corruption reforms and influence their implementation.
Overall, the grounds for cautious optimism need to get reinforced to ensure that systemic corruption will no longer undermine democratic state-building in both countries.
COVID-19: Armenia quarantines hundreds of suspected cases
22:12,
YEREVAN, MARCH 17, ARMENPRESS. The number of suspected novel coronavirus cases to be isolated is expected to reach 600, Minister of Healthcare Arsen Torosyan said on social media.
“By the end of the day we will have 600 quarantined citizens. It is possible for several hundreds more to be quarantined, then the self-quarantine principle will only be applied,” Torosyan said.
As of March 17, 22:00 (GMT+4), there are 78 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in Armenia. One patient, the very first confirmed case, has already recovered.
On March 16th, the government declared a 30-day state of emergency.
Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
Armenia to quarantine evacuees from Italy
17:38, 12 March, 2020
YEREVAN, MARCH 12, ARMENPRESS. Deputy PM Tigran Avinyan chaired a meeting of the governmental task force dealing with the prevention of the COVID19 spread in Armenia.
Avinyan said that they should consider introducing a liability institute in order to secure the effectiveness of the factual isolation of persons who are or will be self-quarantined in their homes. “Even WHO doesn’t advise isolating and quarantining all people who enter the country and this is physically impossible. But in order to implement supervision for those in self-quarantine, I think this discussion should take place today and we must make decisions”, he said. The Healthcare Ministry and the Justice Ministry were both tasked with recommending options of implementing liability against those who will violate self-quarantine regimes.
Issues concerning external and domestic measures aimed at preventing the coronavirus, the economic impacts of the outbreak and potential developments and scenarios were discussed.
Avinyan tasked all governmental agencies to ramp up preventive medical measures.
The task force decided that nationals who will be airlifted out of the coronavirus-hit Italy on a special flight on March 15 will be quarantined for 14 days after arrival.
Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
Eurovision: Armenia’s Athena Manoukian releases “Chains On You” revamp
ESCxTRA
WATCH NOW: Armenia’s Athena Manoukian releases “Chains On You” revamp
Costa Christou
Last month, Athena Manoukian won Depi Evratesil 2020 with the song “Chains on You”. Following her win, she announced via Instagram that she was going to return to the studio to revamp the track for the contest. We got a small snippet of what to expect last week, but now we have the full revamp and music video!
Late last month, the team working on the revamp for Athena Manoukian’s “Chains On You” began to tease the revamp for the Armenian entry. In the clip, a short snippet of the instrumental confirmed that the revamp will feature heavier bass and more Armenian instrumentation. In fact, producer Artem Valter teased “808s [that] will hit the Eurovision stage HARD”.
The video was directed by Arthur Manukyan, and Athena was styled by Mary Stepanyan.
You can now see for yourself if what the team were cooking up:
Athena Manoukian was born in 1994 in Athens, Greece and is of Greek-Armenian decent. Although she has never performed at Eurovision (Junior or otherwise), she has some interesting ties to the contest. In 2008, she participated in the Greek national final for the 2008 Junior Eurovision with “To Fili Tis Aphroditis”.
In 2017 she wrote the music and lyrics for former Eurovision winner Helena Paparizou’s “Palia Mou Agapi”. The track featured on the singer’s 9th album Ouranio Toxo, which reached number one in Greece (no pun intended) and is certified Platinum.
In 2018, she made the Six Chair Challenge stage of X Factor UK, having made a splash with her audition with Beyoncé’s “Crazy In Love”. Following this, expressed interest in participating in the contest, either for Armenia or Greece. Answering fan questions on her Instagram story, she was met with a number of requests for her to participate in the contest for both Greece and Armenia. Fast forward to February 2020, and she is now the Armenian representative for Eurovision 2020!
What do you think of the revamp? Will Armenia return to the final in 2020? Let us know! Be sure to stay updated by following @ESCXTRA on Twitter, @escxtra on Instagram and liking our Facebook page for the latest updates! Also, be sure to subscribe to to see our reactions to the news in the run up to Rotterdam!
RFE/RL Armenian Report – 03/04/2020
Wednesday,
Corruption Case Dropped Against Former Yerevan Mayor
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia -- Minister of Energy Yervand Zakharian at a press conference in
Yerevan, 14 Jan, 2015
Citing the statute of limitations, investigators have dropped a corruption case
against a former mayor of Yerevan accused of illegally privatizing municipal
land at a knockdown price.
The Special Investigative Service (SIS) said in September that it has evidence
that in 2008 then Mayor Yervand Zakharian made a “baseless and illegal” decision
to sell a 10,000-square-meter green area to an obscure private firm that
subsequently built a luxury hotel there.
The area was then part of Yerevan’s largest and most popular public park. It was
“not subject to privatization,” according to the SIS.
The SIS said that the company bought the plot from the municipal administration
for only 165 million drams ($346,000), far less than its market value which the
law-enforcement body estimated at almost 3 billion drams. It launched a criminal
investigation into an apparent abuse of power committed by Zakharian and another
former municipality official.
The SIS announced on Wednesday that it has decided to close the criminal case
due to the statute of limitations. It said both suspects have accepted the
decision and will not insist on being formally cleared of any wrongdoing.
The SIS said it also asked Armenian prosecutors to consider demanding that a
Yerevan court annul the 2008 deal and confiscate the property built in the park.
Zakharian was Yerevan’s government-appointed mayor from 2003-2009. He went on to
run the Armenian government’s Real Estate Cadaster Committee before being
appointed as energy minister in 2014 by then President Serzh Sarkisian. He held
that post until 2016.
Karabakh Still Freer Than Azerbaijan, Says U.S. Watchdog
Nagorno-Karabakh -- A rally at Renaissance Square in Stepanakert, August 5, 2019.
Nagorno-Karabakh remains a “partly free” territory with a more democratic and
pluralistic political system than in Azerbaijan, Freedom House said in an annual
survey released on Wednesday.
The U.S. human rights group also said that the 2018 “Velvet Revolution” in
Armenia has contributed to greater respect for “political rights” and “civil
liberties” in Karabakh.
“The political opening in Armenia that began with [Nikol] Pashinian’s long-shot
rise to the premiership in 2018 had a positive effect on the disputed territory
of Nagorno-Karabakh during 2019,” reads the latest “Freedom In the World” survey
of more than 200 countries and territories rated on a 100-point scale.
“There was an increase in competition and civil society activity surrounding
local elections in September, and the stage was set for further changes in the
[March] 2020 elections for Nagorno-Karabakh’s president and parliament,” it says.
As a result, Freedom House gave 34 points to Karabakh, up from 31 in 2019.
Armenia received 53 points. It is one of the three “partly free” ex-Soviet
states where the New York-based watchdog saw “some positive signs” in the past
year. The survey says that the leaders of Ukraine, Moldova and Armenia “took
initial steps to uproot the kleptocratic forces that have long stymied their
countries’ democratic aspirations.”
By contrast, Azerbaijan was again rated “not free,” with Freedom House lowering
its score from 11 to 10.
“Power in Azerbaijan’s authoritarian regime remains heavily concentrated in the
hands of Ilham Aliyev, who has served as president since 2003, and his extended
family,” says the report. “Corruption is rampant, and the formal political
opposition has been weakened by years of persecution. The authorities have
carried out an extensive crackdown on civil liberties in recent years, leaving
little room for independent expression or activism.”
The Azerbaijani government had condemned Freedom House’s earlier evaluations of
Azerbaijan and especially Karabakh, saying that they highlight the watchdog’s
“biased attitude towards Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.” Baku did not
immediately react to the latest global survey.
Freedom House upgraded the status of the Armenian-populated unrecognized
republic, which broke away from Azerbaijani rule in the early 1990s, from “not
free” to “partly free” in 2013. It attributed that to a “competitive”
presidential election held in Karabakh in 2012.
The upcoming elections are expected to be the most democratic, competitive and
unpredictable in Karabakh’s history.
Arrest Warrant Sought For 'Fugitive' Tycoon
• Gayane Saribekian
Armenia - Businessman Samvel Mayrapetian at the official opening of his Toyota
car dealership in Yerevan, 23 June 2009.
Law-enforcement authorities on Wednesday asked a court in Yerevan to issue a
fresh arrest warrant for a prominent Armenian businessman who was allowed to
receive medical treatment abroad after being indicted more than a year ago.
The businessman, Samvel Mayrapetian, was arrested in October 2018 on charges of
“assisting” in large-scale bribery alleged by a fellow entrepreneur, Silva
Hambardzumian.
Hambardzumian claimed to have transferred millions of dollars in cash to former
Presidents Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sarkisian and another former official
through Mayrapetian in 2008. The latter strongly denied the allegation before
being freed on bail in December 2018.
In January 2019, the Special Investigative Service (SIS) reluctantly allowed
Mayrapetian to undergo treatment in Germany. He promised to return to Armenia
after recuperating from a life-threatening form of pancreatitis.
The SIS said afterwards that it expects Mayrapetian to fly back to Yerevan by
October 15, 2019. His lawyers claimed later in October that he was hospitalized
again in Germany due to another deterioration of his condition.
According to the SIS, the tycoon has since ignored, on “unsubstantiated”
grounds, more orders to present himself before investigators. The
law-enforcement body accused him of using his disease as an excuse to avoid
returning to Armenia.
The SIS announced on Wednesday that it has launched a formal hunt for
Mayrapetian and requested a court permission to arrest him again.
Mayrapetian’s lawyer, Karen Batikian, insisted that his client still has serious
health problems and is not hiding in Europe.
“I talked to him one month ago,” Batikian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “He
said he is going to undergo another surgery.”
The SIS move may also spell trouble for two individuals who guaranteed in
writing that Mayrapetian will come back to the country once his treatment in a
German clinic is complete. Those are Ruben Fanarjian, a senior professor at the
Armenian State Medical University, and Rev. Vahram Melikian, a spokesman for the
Armenian Apostolic Church.
Under Armenian law, Fanarjian and Melikian will risk fines or up to two years in
prison if investigators claim and prove that they “malevolently” helped
Mayrapetian escape justice. Neither man could be reached for comment.
In January 2019, Fanarjian and Melikian also deposited 15 million drams
($31,000) each in support of their guarantee. The SIS can now confiscate the sum.
Mayrapetian, 60, is one of Armenia’s leading real estate developers who also
owns a national TV channel and a car dealership. Some media outlets had for
years linked Kocharian’s elder son Sedrak to the Toyota dealership.
Kocharian is currently under arrest and on trial, having been charged in July
2018 in connection with the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan. The
ex-president was also charged with bribe-taking one year ago. He rejects all
accusations as politically motivated.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2020 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.