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    Categories: 2020

RFE/RL Armenian Report – 08/12/2020

                                        Wednesday, 

Prosecutor Demands Lengthy Jail Terms For Sasna Tsrer Members

        • Artak Khulian

At the trial of Sasna Tsrer members,Yerevan, .

A prosecutor in a high-profile trial in Armenia has demanded lengthy prison 
terms for members of an armed group that seized a police base in capital Yerevan 
in 2016 and made political demands.

A majority of more than two dozen members of Sasna Tsrer, a fringe opposition 
group involving a number of prominent Karabakh war veterans, were set free 
pending the outcome of their ongoing trial after the change of government in 
Armenia in 2018. Many of them were released under personal guarantees of 
parliament members.

After seizing the police compound in Yerevan’s Erebuni district in July 2016 the 
gunmen led by retired army colonel Varuzhan Avetisian demanded that then 
President Serzh Sarkisian free jailed nationalist politician Zhirayr Sefilian 
and step down.

They laid down their weapons after a two-week standoff with security forces 
which left three police officers dead and was accompanied by hostage-taking.

In his closing arguments in court on Wednesday prosecuting attorney Artur 
Chakhoyan requested that Avetisian and another leader of the group, Pavel 
Manukian, be sentenced to 8 years and 9 months, and 9 years, respectively.

The prosecutor demanded life imprisonment and 21 years in jail for Sasna Tsrer 
members Smbat Barseghian and Armen Bilian, respectively, accusing them of 
committing the murders of police officers.

He sought between eight and a half and nine years in prison for other members of 
the group on trial.

During the trial Sasna Tsrer members have defied the case for the prosecution, 
claiming that they exercised their right to uprising against what they viewed as 
an oppressive regime.

A political party formed around the Sasna Tsrer movement and led by Avetisian 
took part in Armenia’s early parliamentary elections in December 2018. The party 
failed to clear the 5-percent threshold to enter the legislature by polling less 
than 2 percent of the vote.




Protesters In Armenia Demand Opportunity To Go To Russia

        • Robert Zargarian

Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian talking to protesters outside the 
government offices in Yerevan, .

A group of Armenian citizens on Wednesday gathered near the government offices 
in Yerevan to demand an opportunity to leave the country and specifically go to 
Russia.

Some Armenian citizens who live and work on a permanent basis in Russia had come 
to Armenia before the introduction of the coronavirus-related state of emergency 
in March and had to stay in the country due to the subsequent closure of 
international borders.

Five months on, many of them, including those who also hold Russian passports, 
say they cannot travel back to Russia either to rejoin their families or return 
to work there.

The protest comes on a day when the Armenian government has announced imminent 
removal of certain travel restrictions for foreigners to enter Armenia by air.

In presenting to parliament the decision to extend the state of emergency for 
another month, Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian said, however, that land 
border crossings with both Georgia and Iran will remain closed for now.

Avinian also made it clear that there are no restrictions for Armenian citizens 
to leave the country by air and that it was within the competence of the 
receiving country to remove any existing prohibitions.

At the same time, the official confirmed that the Armenian government was in 
talks with counterparts in Moscow regarding the possibility of Armenian citizens 
traveling to Russia.

Answering the question of opposition Bright Armenia faction leader Edmon 
Marukian on the fate of thousands of Armenians who travel to Russia as migrant 
workers, Avinian said: “As you know, the Russian Federation has publicly 
expressed its readiness for a mutual opening of borders. Now individual 
negotiations are being conducted. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working in 
this direction. In other words, work is being conducted with the Russian 
Federation at this point over a mutual opening of borders and also over 
subsequent regulations.”

Some participants of today’s protest said they wanted to travel to Russia in 
their own cars. But even for citizens holding Russian passports this looks 
problematic given that they have to go through Georgia, a country with a much 
better coronavirus epidemiological situation than Armenia’s.

“We went to the [Russian] embassy, we went to the National Assembly... We have 
been raising this issue for three or four weeks now,” one protester complained.

Some Armenians who mainly live in Russia spent several nights in their cars at 
the Bagratashen border checkpoint in northern Armenia only to be turned away by 
border officials. “Many of us are Russian citizens. We all want to return home. 
We want to be given a corridor to go to Russia,” the protester said.

Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanian came down to listen to the 
protesters. He explained to them that borders are opened and closed not only in 
Armenia, but in other countries as well. “At this moment Armenia has a system in 
place for other citizens to cross the border, and other countries have theirs. 
If our neighbors keep the border closed, that is their policy.”

Mnatsakanian said that it is the Russian authorities that should answer the 
questions raised by the protesters in Armenia.

One man claimed that they were being held hostage in Armenia. “There is no such 
[harsh] state of emergency,” he contended.

The minister countered: “Do you understand that there has been a pandemic? Do 
you follow the numbers? Do you see that the risks are very high?”

Since the start of the epidemic in March over 40,000 coronavirus cases have been 
identified in Armenia, making the infection rate in the South Caucasus country 
with a population of about 3 million one of the highest in the world. During 
this period 806 people in Armenia have died from COVID-19, the death of another 
234 patients infected with the virus, according to the health authorities, was 
primarily caused by other, pre-existing diseases.




Armenia Extends Coronavirus State Of Emergency


People wearing face masks in downtown Yerevan at the height of the coronavirus 
epidemic in June 2020

Citing the need to maintain the current positive trend in its fight against the 
novel coronavirus, the Armenian government has decided to extend the 
pandemic-related state of emergency by another month.

At the same time, the Armenian authorities have removed certain prohibitions and 
restrictions introduced in March, including the ban on political assembly.

At a special government meeting on Wednesday, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian 
said that he hoped that the fifth extension of the state-of-emergency rule will 
be the last, urging citizens to continue to follow anti-epidemic rules set by 
the authorities.

“Going through hell today and having had 806 deaths caused by the novel 
coronavirus and 234 deaths among coronavirus patients due to their other 
pre-existing diseases, we have a chance to get to a totally new situation in the 
fall, in fact to a situation of overcoming [the epidemic] regardless of what 
will be happening in the rest of the world,” Pashinian said.


Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian

The Armenian prime minister underscored that wearing face masks in all public 
spaces, which has been mandatory in Armenia since June, will continue to be the 
cornerstone of his government’s anti-epidemic strategy.

“If we show exceptional discipline in wearing face masks we can consider that we 
– I mean all of us, all our citizens – have practically solved the coronavirus 
problem. If not, we will get back to the July situation,” Pashinian warned, 
referring to the apparent peak of the epidemic in the first part of last month 
when more than 700 new coronavirus cases and about 15 deaths were reported in 
Armenia on a daily basis.

Since the start of the epidemic in March over 40,000 coronavirus cases have been 
identified in the South Caucasus country with a population of about 3 million. 
According to Armenia’s Ministry of Health, more than 33,000 people with the 
coronavirus have overcome the respiratory infection.

The monthly extensions of the state of emergency have increasingly been 
criticized by Armenian opposition groups in recent months. Some of them claimed 
that Pashinian was exploiting the coronavirus crisis to ward off anti-government 
street protests.

In its current decision the Pashinian government has removed restrictions on 
political rallies and public protests across the country, making them 
conditional on coronavirus safety rules that require all participants to wear 
face masks and maintain the social distance of at least 1.5 meters.

In presenting the government decision on the fifth extension of the state of 
emergency Justice Minister Rustam Badasian also said that Armenia will remove 
the ban on the entry to the country for foreigners by air, but will require that 
they either self-isolate for 14 days or produce a negative test taken in Armenia 
before being allowed to move freely.

Badasian said that people will also be allowed to hold and participate in family 
occasions and other entertainment events in both open and closed spaces, but 
with no more than 40 participants and maintaining all coronavirus safety rules 
set by the government. Also, the minister said, restrictions will be removed 
from transportation of goods through customs.

Pashinian stressed that all bans and restrictions introduced by his government, 
including on political assembly, were based on the epidemiological situation and 
their removal is also conditional on that. “If, God forbid, as a result of 
removing these restrictions we will see numbers climbing again, we will be 
forced to re-introduce them,” the prime minister warned.

The decision to extend the state of emergency until September 11 was discussed 
in the National Assembly later on Wednesday.

The parliament where Prime Minister Pashinian’s My Step alliance has a 
commanding majority overcame the challenge submitted by the opposition Bright 
Armenia faction against the extension of the state of emergency by a vote of 68 
to 22.


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2020 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
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