RESIDENTS OF YEREVAN’S KENTRON COMMUNITY AREAS SUBJECT TO URBAN DEVELOPMENT DEMAND MAYOR’S RESIGNATION
Author: Editor: Eghian Robert

Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Sept 27 2007

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 27, NOYAN TAPAN. Residents of Yerevan’s Yeznik
Koghbatsi Street and the Dalma gardens staged a demonstration in
front of the RA government’s building on September 27 in connection
with procrastination of the privatization of the residential areas
occupied by them. They demand that their violated rights be restored
and their right of ownership over the apartments and land plots used
by them be recognized.

Vachagan Hakobian, chairman of Protection of Own Rights NGO, told
NT correspondent that on April 13 of this year the Armenian prime
minister Serge Sargsian received the denonstrators and promised
to solve this problem after the parliamentary elections. The prime
minister instructed the Yerevan mayor Yervand Zakharian to speed up
the real estate privatization in these areas but this instruction
has not been fulfilled so far.

In the words of V. Hakobian, under a number of governmental decisions,
which were later recognized as anticonstitutional, the Yerevan
municipality (using the levers of force structures, administrative and
court systems) have evicted Armenian citizens from their apartments.

"We demand the mayor’s resignation: he must be called to account
for selling areas to businessmen under the pretext of "state needs",
V. Hakobian stated.

Sedrak Baghdasarian, chairman of Victims of State Needs NGO, noted that
in case of failing to get a positive response from the prime minister,
the residents will send an open letter to the country’s president, and
to a number of international structures, including the European Court.