Tuesday, 

Ruling Bloc, Opposition Spar Over LGBT Rights In Armenia

        • Astghik Bedevian

Armenia -- Anti-LGBT activists demonstrate outside the parliament building in 
Yerevan, April 8, 2019.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s alliance and the main opposition Prosperous 
Armenia Party (BHK) on Tuesday continued to blame each other for a transgender 
activist’s unprecedented speech in the Armenian parliament which caused a stir 
in the socially conservative country.

Pashinian also hit out at former President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party 
of Armenia (HHK), saying that some of its senior members are “gay activists.”

The scandal broke out during last week’s parliamentary hearings in Yerevan 
chaired by Naira Zohrabian, the BHK-affiliated chairperson of a parliament 
committee on human rights. They were attended by lawmakers, government 
officials as well as representatives of local non-governmental organizations.

One of those groups, Right Side, champions LGBT rights. Its transgender leader, 
Lilit Martirosian, also spoke at the hearings, complaining about widespread 
hostility and discrimination against sexual minorities in Armenia.

The presence of an LGBT activist on the Armenian parliament floor visibly 
surprised and angered Zohrabian. She berated Martirosian for bringing up issues 
which she said are not on the agenda of the hearings.

Zohrabian claimed afterwards that the hitherto little-known activist was 
invited, without her knowledge, to the hearings by Maria Karapetian, a 
parliament deputy from Pashinian’s My Stem alliance. Karapetian and other 
pro-government lawmakers denied that, saying that all participants of the 
discussion received written invitations from Zohrabian. The BHK parliamentarian 
rejected those claims as “blatant lies.”

The bitter recriminations came amid furious reactions to Martirosian’s public 
appearance from nationalist and conservative groups hostile to the Armenian 
LGBT community. More than a hundred members and supporters of those groups 
rallied outside the parliament building on Monday. Riot police stopped them 
from entering the building and protesting inside it.


Armenia - Naira Zohrabian, the chairwoman of the Armenian parliament committee 
on human rights, speaks during parliamentary hearings in Yerevan, April 5, 2019.

Pashinian weighed in on the controversy on Tuesday, accusing Zohrabian of 
staging a “political provocation” against the parliament majority loyal to him. 
He said a security agency protecting the parliament building shared with him a 
list of individuals, including Lilit Martirosian, invited to the hearings, 
which was signed by the Zohrabian.

The prime minister went on to challenge the BHK to consider recalling Zohrabian 
and naming another head of the parliament committee.

The BHK’s parliamentary faction, which is the second largest in the National 
Assembly, was quick to hold an emergency meeting and voice strong support with 
its embattled member.

“Our faction believes that Naira Zohrabian did not violate any rules of ethical 
parliamentary conduct or provisions of the parliament statues or any other 
legal norm,” said Gevorg Petrosian, another senior BHK parliamentarian known 
for his vocal opposition to LGBT rights.

The BHK’s top leader, Gagik Tsarukian, threw his weight Zohrabian on Monday. 
Tsarukian described people’s non-traditional sexual orientation as a “vice” 
which must not be allowed to “spread” in Armenia.

Another BHK deputy, Vartan Ghukasian, went farther, saying that all “perverts” 
must be expelled from the country. “Send them to Holland,” Ghukasian told 
reporters. “We want … females to be females and males to be males. You can’t 
mix female with male. It’s shameful.”

Pashinian’s bloc was also attacked by Eduard Sharmazanov, the spokesman for the 
former ruling HHK. “Yes, something has changed in our country. Under the HHK, a 
transgender person would not have delivered a speech in the National Assembly,” 
Sharmazanov said in a video statement posted on Facebook on Friday.

Pashinian countered that Martirosian had legally changed her previous, male 
first name, Vagharshak, during Sarkisian’s rule. He said that the transgender 
activist’s current passport issued in 2015 identifies her as a male. “Is it a 
common practice among the Republicans to have men named Lilit?” he scoffed.

“When I was telling them that ‘you are gay activists’ they did not believe me,” 
Pashinian added mockingly. “They just can’t avoid that status and this is 
further proof [of that.]”

Meanwhile, the fallout from Martirosian’s public statement prompted serious 
concern from the European Union. In an extraordinary joint statement issued on 
Tuesday, the EU Delegation in Armenian and the Yerevan-based embassies of EU 
member states condemned “hate speech, including death threats directed at Ms. 
Lilit Martirosian, her colleagues and the LGBTI community as a whole.”

“The EU calls on all in Armenia who promote and believe in the universality of 
human rights to condemn hate speech and on law enforcement agencies to take 
urgent steps to guarantee the physical safety of Armenian citizens and to 
investigate allegations against those suspected of perpetrating hate crimes,” 
said the statement.



Pashinian Rages At Customs Officers

        • Artak Khulian

Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian visits a customs terminal in Yerevan, 
April 9, 2019.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian publicly ordered the sacking of several Armenian 
customs officers on Tuesday after accusing one of them of showing a lack of 
respect.

“When the prime minister approaches, you must stand at attention,” Pashinian 
told the officer while inspecting a customs terminal in Yerevan processing 
imported cars. “Not like this,” he said imitating what he saw as the officer’s 
relaxed posture.

Pashinian also berated the same officer when he went into an adjacent office 
room and saw an unwashed Armenian national flag.

“This is unacceptably dirty, terribly dirty facility,” he said after emerging 
the room. “This is an attitude towards people, towards our flag and 
coat-in-arms.”

“How many people work in that room?” he asked a more senior official running 
the terminal. “Everyone working in that room with such a flag must not work 
[for the customs service.]”

Another customs official, Hayk Martirosian, tried to justify the lack of 
tidiness there, saying that the officers only recently relocated into that 
office and received the flag from another agency.

Pashinian defended his extraordinary order in an ensuing Facebook post. “If I 
have to fire tens of thousands of people I will fire them,” he wrote. “But I 
will not tolerate such an attitude towards the national flag.”

Artur Sakunts, a human rights activist, insisted that Pashinian has no legal 
right to order such firings. “It is the head of the customs service, the head 
of the State Revenue Committee, who must first and foremost bears 
responsibility for those circumstances,” said Sakunts.



Armenian ‘Fake News’ Suspect Charged After Arrest

        • Marine Khachatrian

Armenia -- The entrnace to the to the National Security Service building in 
Yerevan.

An Armenian social media user highly critical of the government has been 
charged with incidting “ethnic, racial or religious hatred” after being 
arrested as part of a crackdown ordered by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.

The director of Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS), Artur Vanetsian, 
reported the arrest on Friday. He said that the suspect “hid behind” a Facebook 
page called “Dukhov Hayastan Open Society.”

The page, which has more than 2,200 followers, contains derogatory and even 
offensive posts on Pashinian and his associates. It was most recently updated 
on Thursday evening.

Earlier on Thursday, Pashinian ordered Vanetsian to clamp down on “criminal 
circles” which he said “spend millions on manipulating public opinion through 
the press and social media.” “That’s a matter of national security,” he said, 
singling out “fake” social media users.

The NSS said on Tuesday that the suspect has been formally charged and remanded 
in pre-trial custody. It again declined to identify him or her.

The charges brought against that individual carry between three and six years’ 
imprisonment. The NSS did not cite concrete Facebook posts covered by a 
relevant article of the Armenian Criminal Code.

An NSS spokesman said earlier that the National Bureau of Expertise, which is 
part of Armenia’s law-enforcement system, has looked into the Facebook page and 
concluded that it contains calls for violence against “Armenia’s politicians 
and citizens.” The bureau also found “negative evaluations” of an unnamed 
Armenian national hero and an ancient cathedral in Echmiadzin as well as 
statements undermining “interethnic relations.”

Some opposition politicians and civil rights activists have expressed concern 
about Pashinian’s order, saying that it poses a threat to freedom of expression 
in Armenia. Shushan Doydoyan, the head of the Yerevan-based Center for Freedom 
of Information, on Friday criticized it as hasty and unfounded. She said the 
NSS, which is the successor to the Armenian branch of the Soviet KGB secret 
police, must not deal with mass or social media content in any way.



Press Review



“Zhoghovurd” says that one year ago Nikol Pashinian and his supporters moved to 
create a “total chaos” in Armenia in their bid to topple Serzh Sarkisian. “Time 
has showed that the method chosen by them worked,” writes the paper. Now, it 
says, Pashinian’s political foes are trying to exploit controversial government 
decisions to try to create a “chaotic situation.” “It is impossible not to 
notice the hand of a skilled manipulator who tries to use public discontent 
with government decisions for speculative purposes,” it says, pointing the 
finger at the country’s former rulers.

“Aravot” defends a bombshell speech that was delivered by a transgender 
activist in the Armenian parliament last week. “The life, security and rights 
of all of our citizens must be protected, regardless of the specificities of 
those citizens,” writes the paper. It cites and dismisses critics’ arguments in 
favor of “protecting our national values.” “When it comes to national values, 
everyone has their own priorities,” the paper’s editor, Aram Abrahamian, says. 
“For me, the supreme value is the Armenian state and its constitution, Article 
29 of which prohibits any kind of discrimination.”

“Haykakan Zhamanak” comments on protests that were staged in Yerevan on Monday 
by furious critics of gay rights and employees of the Spayka company whose 
owner, Davit Ghazarian, was arrested on tax evasion charges. “These two events 
were certainly not connected to each other,” writes the pro-government paper. 
“The only connection is that in both cases the events which caused the protests 
were not commensurate with a propaganda outcry accompanied by manipulations.”

(Lilit Harutiunian)


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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