RFE/RL Armenian Report – 05/27/2020

                                        Wednesday, 

Arrest Warrant Sought For Former ‘Oligarch’

        • Naira Bulghadarian

Armenia - Ruben Hayrapetian, chairman of the Football Federation of Armenia, 
speaks at a news conference in Yerevan, 12Jan2018.

A law-enforcement body has asked a Yerevan court to allow it to arrest Ruben 
Hayrapetian, a wealthy businessman linked to Armenia’s former leadership, on 
kidnapping and assault charges.

The Investigative Committee indicted Hayrapetian, his son Rafik and four other 
persons earlier this month. It claimed tha in 2016 they kidnapped and 
systematically beat up the chief manager of a Hayrapetian-owned resort who 
allegedly misused more than 52 million drams ($108,000) borrowed from a 
commercial bank controlled by the feared tycoon.

A statement released by the committee said the manager, Hayk Shahnazarian, was 
held in captivity for three weeks before handing over about $50,000 worth of 
cash, cars and jewelry items to his kidnappers. It said the latter also forced 
him to give up a house belonging to his grandmother.

A lawyer for Hayrapetian, Amram Makinian, denied the accusations when he spoke 
to RFE/RL’s Armenian service on May 19. He claimed said his client is a victim 
of the “apparent crime” committed by Shahnazarian.

Hayrapetian left Armenia in March and, according to the Investigative Committee, 
is currently in Moscow. A spokeswoman for the committee, Rima Yeganian, said on 
Wednesday that during a recent phone conversation with an investigator he 
claimed to be unable to return to Yerevan because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Yeganian dismissed that explanation, saying that the Armenian Embassy in Russia 
expressed readiness to help repatriate the suspect on a special Moscow-Yerevan 
flight carried out on Monday but that he did not accept the offer. Investigators 
therefore believe that he simply fled prosecution, said the official.

Hayrapetian, 56, has long supported former President Serzh Sarkisian and remains 
affiliated with the latter’s Republican Party. He used to represent the party in 
the Armenian parliament.

The once influential tycoon, who was notorious for violent conduct, accused the 
current authorities of harassing him for political reasons after being briefly 
detained by the Armenian police in February. The police claimed he was taken in 
for questioning on suspicion of illegal arms possession.

The detention came one day after Hayrapetian was questioned as a witness in a 
criminal investigation into alleged corruption in the Football Federation of 
Armenia (FFA) which he headed from 2002-2018. Masked police officers searched 
his Yerevan villa in December as part of the same probe. He was not charged as a 
result.




Armenian Government Moves To Raise Property Taxes

        • Sargis Harutyunyan

Armenia -- A new apartment block in Yerevan.

The Armenian government announced on Wednesday plans to sharply increase the 
presently modest taxes collected from homeowners.

A bill approved by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s cabinet calls for 
particularly drastic increases in property taxes paid by rich or affluent 
Armenians.

“Today, there are luxury villas which, for example, pay 800,000 drams [in 
property tax] each year,” said Pashinian. “They will have to pay 15 million 
drams after we change the law. It’s obvious that for such homeowners 15 million 
drams is not a big deal.”

According to the International Monetary Fund, proceeds from these taxes are 
currently equivalent to just 0.2 percent of Armenia’s Gross Domestic Product, a 
very low proportion not only by Western but also ex-Soviet standards.

The government expects to significantly increase them without changing the 
existing progressive tax rates ranging from 0.05 percent to 1 percent. It wants 
to change instead the methodology of calculating the value of properties, which 
is currently based on their cadastral valuation by a government agency. Under 
the government bill, the Cadaster Committee would determine it on the basis of 
their market value.

The head of the committee, Suren Tovmasian, said that to his the agency will 
launch an electronic database that will enable every homeowner to see the price 
of their property and the calculated amount of their tax obligations.

The bill would introduce a complex progressive scale of taxation. For example, 
the owners of small apartments worth an estimated 23 million drams ($48,000) 
would pay 18,000 drams, while ownership of larger properties that cost 58 
million drams would translate into 108,000 drams in annual taxes.

Tax authorities would levy at least 326,000 drams from luxury apartments worth 
100 million drams or more. The owners of large and expensive houses would have 
to pay even more.

Finance Minister Atom Janjughazian estimated that Armenia’s property tax 
revenue, most of it directly channeled into local community budgets, would more 
than quadruple as a result. He said local communities would therefore be the 
main beneficiaries of the bill approved by the government.

The government was quick to send the bill to the Armenian parliament for urgent 
debate. If passed, the proposed changes to the national tax legislation would be 
introduced gradually over the next three years.




Thousands Of COVID-19 Cases Unaccounted For, Says Pashinian


Armenia -- Masked police officers patrol streets of Yerevan, May 25, 2020.

The number of people in Armenia infected with coronavirus is twice higher than 
official statistics indicate, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Wednesday.

The Armenian health authorities have reported 7,774 coronavirus cases so far. 
About 5 percent of them were registered on Tuesday, a further indication that 
the virus is continuing to spread rapidly in the country of about 3 million 
following the recent lifting of a nationwide lockdown.

The Ministry of Health reported on Wednesday morning that seven more people died 
from COVID-19 in the past day, raising the official death toll to 98. It said 
five other infected citizens died as a result of other, chronic illnesses. The 
number of such fatalities thus rose to 44.

“There are now thousands of people in the country infected with coronavirus who 
do not even know that they are carriers of the virus,” Pashinian told a cabinet 
meeting held later in the day.

Pashinian said that countries around the world are able to register less than 
half of COVID-19 infections. “Therefore, if there are 7,000 confirmed cases in 
Armenia now, it means that there are 14,000 carriers of the virus [in reality,]” 
he said, adding that the vast majority of them are asymptomatic and unaware of 
being infected.

The daily numbers of new COVID-19 infections and deaths have increased steadily 
and significantly since the Armenian government began lifting in mid-April 
lockdown restrictions imposed in late March. All sectors of the Armenian economy 
were allowed to resume their work by May 10.

Despite what Pashinian described as a “quite severe situation,” the government 
has signaled no plans to again restrict people’s movements and shut down much of 
the economy.

The prime minister again insisted on Wednesday that the spread of the virus can 
be halted if Armenians frequently wash hands, wear face masks and practice 
social distancing. He reiterated that “individual responsibility” of citizens 
remains the government’s “principal tool” for tackling the disease.

Pashinian also reaffirmed his pledges to toughen the enforcement of safety rules 
set by the authorities for people, businesses and other entities.

A senior official attending the cabinet meeting told him that Armenia’s Health 
and Labor Inspectorate has already ordered this week one-day closures of some 
290 cafes, restaurants and other business not complying with the rules. For 
their part, the Armenian police claimed to have fined or reprimanded hundreds of 
people who did not wear masks on buses and other enclosed spaces.

Critics of the government are skeptical about the effectiveness of the 
government strategy of defeating the virus. They say that the authorities lifted 
the lockdown too soon and never enforced it properly in the first place.




Parliament Majority Seeks Power To Cancel Constitutional Referendum

        • Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- A session of the National Assembly, Yerevan, May 25, 2020.

The pro-government majority in the Armenian parliament has moved to enact 
legislation that will allow it to formally cancel a planned referendum on 
ousting most members of the country’s Constitutional Court.

Armenians were scheduled to vote on April 5 on government-drafted constitutional 
amendments ending the powers of seven of the nine Constitutional Court judges 
who had for months been under strong government pressure to resign.

The referendum was postponed on March 16 when the Armenian government declared a 
state of emergency to deal with the coronavirus outbreak in the country. Earlier 
this month the government extended it by another month, until June 14. Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian confirmed on May 17 that due to the pandemic the vote 
will not be held anytime soon.

Under Armenian law, no elections or referendums can take place during the state 
of emergency. But the authorities must hold a planned vote 50 to 65 days after 
the end of emergency rule.

A bill drafted by Vahagn Hovakimian, a senior lawmaker from Pashinian’s My Step 
bloc, would not only abolish this requirement but also allow the parliament 
cancel a referendum altogether.

As the National Assembly began debating the bill on Wednesday Hovakimian and 
other pro-government deputies insisted that it does not mean Armenia’s political 
leadership will necessarily call off the controversial referendum. They said 
their initiative is only aimed at eliminating ambiguities in the existing 
legislation regulating the conduct of referendums.

Opposition deputies were unconvinced. One of them, Naira Zohrabian, questioned 
the bill’s conformity with the Armenian constitution. She also claimed that the 
authorities are afraid of not garnering a sufficient number of votes in the 
referendum and are trying to get rid of the Constitutional Court judges through 
the parliament controlled by them.

Parliament majority leaders indicated last week that the Pashinian 
administration no longer insists on replacing all seven judges and is ready to 
settle for a less radical change in the court’s composition. They said this is 
why the government asked the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe this 
month to help end its standoff with the high court.


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