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    Categories: 2021

RFE/RL Armenian Report – 02/03/2021

                                        Wednesday, February 03, 2021

Armenian Opposition Alliance To Resume Anti-Government Protests
February 03, 2021
        • Gayane Saribekian

Armenia -- Opposition supporters demonstrate outside the main government 
building in Yerevan to demand Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian's resignation, 
December 12, 2020.

Leaders of a coalition of more than a dozen Armenian opposition parties said on 
Wednesday that it will resume soon street protests aimed at forcing Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian to resign.

“There will be civil disobedience actions -- marches, demonstrations, rallies -- 
so that we oust this government of evil under popular pressure,” said Ishkhan 
Saghatelian, the coordinator of the Homeland Salvation Movement. He did not go 
into details.

The alliance blames Pashinian for Armenia’s defeat in the recent war with 
Azerbaijan and wants him to hand over power to an interim government headed by 
one of its leaders, Vazgen Manukian. The prime minister has rejected the 
opposition demands and has offered to hold fresh parliamentary elections instead.

The opposition forces failed to attract large crowds for their street protests 
staged in Yerevan in November and December. Saghatelian said last week that they 
are now discussing ways of reinvigorating their campaign.

The top leaders of the alliance met late on Tuesday as part of those 
discussions. They included Saghatelian, Manukian, former Presidents Serzh 
Sarkisian and Robert Kocharian, Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) leader Gagik 
Tsarukian and former National Security Service Director Artur Vanetsian.

“The movement will continue protest actions at top gear and use its entire 
toolkit for fighting against the authorities,” Vanetsian told reporters. He said 
that the anti-government protests were suspended because of a cold weather, 
rather than differences among the alliance leaders.

Saghatelian acknowledged that they are divided over their participation in snap 
elections that would be held by the current government. But he downplayed those 
differences, saying that the opposition forces remain united in their attitude 
towards Pashinian’s administration.

Kocharian said last week that he and his political allies will participate in 
the elections if they are organized by the current government. The BHK and 
Vanetsian’s Fatherland are also against boycotting such polls. The boycott is 
favored by Sarkisian’s Republican Party.



Armenia ‘Ready’ To Buy Russia’s COVID-19 Vaccine
February 03, 2021

RUSSIA -- A woman receives an injection with Sputnik V vaccine against the 
coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at a hospital in the village of Donskoye in 
Stavropol Region, January 27, 2021

The Armenian government would like to buy Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine 
and is negotiating with Moscow for that purpose, Health Minister Anahit 
Avanesian said on Wednesday.

“Close cooperation and periodical exchange of experience with the Russian side 
is very important for us, and our specialists are now holding active 
negotiations over the acquisition of the Sputnik V vaccine,” she told Sergei 
Kopyrkin, the Russian ambassador to Armenia, at a meeting in Yerevan.

A statement by the Armenian Ministry of Health quoted Avanesian as saying that 
her government is ready to buy Sputnik V in addition to another vaccine which is 
due to be supplied to Armenia by the COVAX Facility global partnership supported 
by the World Health Organization. No other details were reported.

The Russian Ministry of Health donated more a dozen doses of Sputnik V to 
Armenia in November. Then Health Minister Arsen Torosian and other senior 
officials were among Armenian volunteers who received the vaccine shots at the 
time.

The deputy director of the Armenian National Center for Disease Control and 
Prevention, Gayane Sahakian, said late last month that COVAX will soon deliver 
the first batch of the relatively cheap vaccine developed by the British company 
AstraZeneca and Oxford University

Sahakian said the Armenian health authorities plan to start vaccinating an 
estimated 3 percent of the country’s population against COVID-19 by the 
beginning of March. The “first phase” of the vaccination will cover medical 
workers, care home personnel, people aged 65 and older as well as younger people 
suffering from chronic diseases, added the official.

The authorities have so far announced no plans to vaccinate the majority of 
Armenians.

Armenia has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 167,000 
cases and at least 3,096 fatalities officially confirmed in the country of about 
3 million to date. The real number of cases is believed to be much higher.

Ministry of Health data shows that COVID-19 infections have fallen significantly 
in the last three months even though the authorities have largely stopped 
enforcing their safety and hygiene rules. The ministry reported on Wednesday 
that 190 people tested positive for the disease in the past 24 hours, down from 
more than 2,000 cases a day routinely registered in late October and early 
November.



Armenian Parliament Approves Government Plans For New Judges
February 03, 2021
        • Artak Khulian
        • Gayane Saribekian

Armenia -- A session of the National Assembly, February 3, 2021

Opposition leaders accused the Armenian parliament of undermining judicial 
independence on Wednesday as it approved a government proposal to hire new 
judges who will deal only with corruption cases or pre-trial arrests of criminal 
suspects.

A relevant bill drafted by the Ministry of Justice calls for the selection of up 
to 21 such judges for Armenian courts of first instance. Three other new judges 
specializing in arrests or corruption-related offenses would be appointed to the 
Court of Appeals.

Government officials have said that the new judges would reduce the workload of 
courts increasingly overwhelmed by pending criminal and civil cases. According 
to Justice Minister Rustam Badasian, they should also hand down “more objective” 
rulings on arrest warrants demanded by investigators.

In recent months Armenian judges have refused to allow law-enforcement bodies to 
arrest dozens of opposition leaders and members as well as other anti-government 
activists. Virtually all of those individuals are prosecuted in connection with 
angry protests sparked by the Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s handling of the 
autumn war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Pashinian charged in December that Armenia’s judicial system has become part of 
a “pseudo-elite” which is trying to topple him after the disastrous war.


Armenia -- A courtroom in Yerevan.

The National Assembly passed the government bill in the first reading by 83 
votes to 17 with one abstention. Both opposition parties represented in the 
parliament rejected the bill, saying that the authorities should address instead 
the far more pressing security challenges facing Armenia and Karabakh.

“These issues are not addressed because the authorities have what they see as a 
much more important agenda: how to increase the number of judges approving 
arrest warrants,” said Naira Zohrabian of the opposition Prosperous Armenia 
Party (BHK).

Lilit Makunts, the parliamentary leader of Pashinian’s My Step bloc, rejected 
the criticism. “I want to remind that the government takes on a weekly basis new 
measures to overcome consequences of the war,” she said. “We do not contribute 
to a better [security] environment by delivering fiery speeches here and trying 
to spread alarm among our citizens.”


Armenia - Riot police detain opposition activists outside the parliament 
building in Yerevan, February 3, 2021.

Several other opposition groups denounced the government bill in stronger terms 
and rallied hundreds of supporters outside the parliament compound in Yerevan in 
a bid to scuttle its passage. Their senior members claimed that Pashinian’s 
administration wants to install loyal judges who would duly allow the pre-trial 
arrests of their political opponents.

The protesters scuffled with riot police after blocking a major street adjacent 
to the compound. Several opposition activists were detained on the spot.

The crowd then marched to the main government building surrounded by several 
rows of riot police.



Food Prices Soar In Armenia
February 03, 2021
        • Sargis Harutyunyan

Armenia -- A man looks at meat products at a food store in Yerevan.

Food prices in Armenia rose by an average of 6.4 percent year on year in 
January, according to government data.

A monthly report released by the Armenian government’s Statistical Committee 
shows particularly drastic increases in the prices of imported key foodstuffs 
such as cooking oil and sugar. They were up by more than 40 percent from January 
2020.

The prices of bread, dairy products and eggs rose by about 8 percent, said the 
Statistical Committee. It also reported a roughly 10 percent surge in the cost 
of fruits and vegetables mostly grown in Armenia.

Meat and products made from it were the only foodstuffs that have essentially 
not become more expensive since January 2020, the official statistics show.

Consequently, consumer price inflation in the country reached 4.5 percent last 
month, according to the committee report, surpassing a full-year target of 4 
percent set by the government for 2021. It already rose significantly in 
December.

In a bid to curb the higher-than-projected inflation, the Central Bank of 
Armenia has twice raised its key interest rate since December 15.

The surge in food prices was caused in part by a major depreciation of the 
Armenian dram. The national currency has lost more than 7 percent of its nominal 
value against the U.S. dollar in the past year.

The surge also appears to reflect a global trend. In a recent report, the UN’s 
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that world food prices rose in 
November to the highest level in six years. It described the coronavirus 
pandemic as “an important driver of the levels of global food insecurity.”

The pandemic was the main factor behind an estimated 8 percent contraction of 
Armenia’s GDP in 2020.


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2021 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

 


Emil Lazarian: “I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS