Friday,
Armenia To Again Extend Coronavirus State Of Emergency
• Astghik Bedevian
Armenia -- A masked police officer patrols streets of Yerevan, .
The Armenia government said on Friday it will likely extend a state of emergency
by yet another month due to the continuing coronavirus crisis in the country.
“In all likelihood, the decision to extend the state of emergency by another
month will be made public on Monday,” Mane Gevorgian, the spokeswoman for Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
The government declared a one-month state of emergency on March 16 following the
first outbreaks of the coronavirus registered in Armenia. It imposed a
nationwide lockdown later in March.
The government began easing lockdown restrictions in mid-April. But it has
extended emergency rule on a monthly basis since then, citing the rapidly
growing number of new coronavirus cases.
Pashinian said earlier this week that the government has no choice but to resort
to another extension due to the continuing spread of the deadly disease. He said
it needs special powers to continue to make people wear mandatory face masks in
public areas and to enforce other anti-epidemic rules.
Armenia has one of the highest coronavirus infection rates in the world, with a
total of 30,903 cases confirmed in the country of about 3 million so far.
According to the Armenian Ministry of Health, 557 people tested positive for the
virus on Thursday.
Armenia -- A healthcare worker clad in protective gear looks after COVID-19
patients at the Surb Grigor Lusavorich Medical Center, Yerevan, June 5, 2020.
The ministry also reported on Friday morning the deaths of 18 more people
infected with COVID-19. It said COVID-19 was the primary cause of 11 of those
deaths.
The official death toll thus rose to 546. The figure does not include 177 other
infected people who the ministry says have died from other, pre-existing
conditions.
Under Armenian law, the National Assembly has to meet for an emergency session
immediately after the declaration or extension of emergency rule.
Ani Samsonian, a parliament deputy from the opposition Bright Armenia Party
(LHK), said she and her colleagues will attend the upcoming session to question
the government’s “very ineffective” strategy of dealing with the COVID-19
pandemic.
“The number of new infections is not falling while the [number of] deaths is
already very troubling,” Samsonian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
Arusyak Julhakian, a lawmaker representing Pashinian’s My Step bloc, dismissed
the criticism. She argued, in particular, that Armenia’s coronavirus mortality
rate is low by Western standards.
“If we speak of ineptness, then I think Ms. Samsonian should blame the entire
world and say that the entire world has been inept and failed so far to defeat
the pandemic,” said Julhakian.
Samsonian further suggested that the authorities will again extend the state of
emergency also because they want to keep up the existing ban on street
demonstrations. They are afraid of anti-government protests, she claimed.
“It’s not that thousands of people would take to the streets if there was no
state of emergency,” countered Julhakian. “Our only fear is that if people
gather in large numbers they will get infected.”
Tsarukian Again Criticizes Armenian Government
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- Gagik Tsarukian, the leader of the opposition Prosperous Armenia
Party, arrives at the parliament to give a speech ahead of a vote that stripped
him of immunity from prosecution, Yerevan, June 16, 2020.
Gagik Tsarukian, the leader of the main opposition Prosperous Armenia Party
(BHK), on Friday again accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government of
mishandling the coronavirus crisis and its socioeconomic consequences.
But Tsarukian stopped short of explicitly demanding the government’s resignation
this time around, saying more vaguely instead that “inept officials must be
replaced by competent ones.”
“The authorities are said to be afraid of Tsarukian and this is why they
launched a campaign against him,” he said in a lengthy statement. “They should
not be afraid of Tsarukian. They should be afraid of hundreds of thousands of
people left without work and income.”
Tsarukian, who is also a wealthy businessman, attacked the government and
demanded its resignation at a June 5 meeting with senior BHK members. “We are
losing the country,” he declared in a speech strongly condemned by Pashinian and
the ruling My Step bloc.
Ten days later, Tsarukian was stripped of its parliamentary immunity from
prosecution and indicted on vote buying charges rejected by him as politically
motivated. He claims that Pashinian ordered the criminal proceedings in response
to his speech.
The BHK leader said on Friday that the speech as a “wakeup call” to the
government.
“I have reason to suspect that the authorities do not realize the real scale of
problems,” he wrote. “They don’t realize that we will soon have 200,000-300,000
new unemployed people, that tens of thousands of business are shutting down …
that if we don’t rescue them today it will not be possible to revive them
tomorrow.”
Tsarukian described Armenia’s coronavirus crisis as a “disaster” and accused the
government of wasting public funds meant to shore up businesses affected by the
pandemic. In these circumstances, the government should “get serious” and
“listen to advice and proposals from others,” said the tycoon who was infected
with COVID-19 last week and has not yet recovered from it.
While claiming that the current government has prevented him from creating
thousands of new jobs, Tsarukian pledged to come up soon with “large-scale
investment projects” that will mitigate the economic fallout from the pandemic.
He said he will also strive to improve Armenia’s relations with Russia because
he believes they are vital for his country’s national security and economic
development. “Why would Russia’s big business … come to Armenia if our relations
with Russia are tense?” he added.
BHK representatives did not clarify whether the indicted tycoon’s latest
statement means that the Pashinian administration’s resignation is no longer on
their party’s agenda.
For her part, Pashinian’s spokeswoman, Mane Gevorgian, declined to comment on
the statement.
Tsarukian-Owned Casino Faces Closure
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia -- The Shangri La casino outside Yerevan.
A government body has revoked the operating license of a company managing
Armenia’s largest casino owned by embattled businessman and opposition leader
Gagik Tsarukian.
In its decision posted on a government website late on Thursday, a Ministry of
Finance commission regulating gambling activities in the country said the Onira
Club company failed to make in 2018 a mandatory payment to the state stemming
from the license. The commission also accused it of violating an Armenian law on
gambling.
The decision suggests that the Shangri La casino run by Onira will be shut down
at least temporarily. The company, which is also part of Tsarukian’s Multi Group
conglomerate, did not immediately react to it.
Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) accused Onira and Shangri La of
large-scale fraud hours after searching Tsarukian’s villa as part of a separate
criminal investigation on June 14. The NSS claimed that the financial
irregularities cost the state more than 29 billion drams ($60 million) in damage.
Onira strongly denied the allegations in a statement issued on June 15. It also
insisted that Tsarukian, who leads the main opposition Prosperous Armenia Party
(BHK), was never directly involved in its day-to-day activities and cannot be
held responsible for them.
Also on June 15, the Armenian parliament controlled by Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian’s My Step bloc voted to allow the NSS to arrest and prosecute
Tsarukian on charges of buying votes during parliamentary elections held in 2017.
Tsarukian and his party strongly deny the accusations. They claim that Pashinian
ordered the NSS to “fabricate” them in response to the BHK leader’s June 5 calls
for the Armenian government’s resignation. The prime minister and his allies
deny this.
A district court in Yerevan refused to sanction Tsarukian’s pre-trial arrest on
June 21. The Court of Appeals overturned the verdict earlier this week. But it
stopped short of allowing investigators to take the tycoon into custody,
ordering the lower court instead to hold new hearings on the arrest warrant.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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