Friday, May 6, 2022
Armenian Speaker Explains Mother’s Middle-Finger Salute To Protesters
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- A screenshot of a video that shows the mother of parliament speaker
Alen Simonian giving opposition protesters the middle finger, Yerevan, May 6,
2022
Parliament speaker Alen Simonian defended his mother on Friday after cameras
caught her showing the middle finger to opposition protesters demanding Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation.
A video circulated on social media showed a middle-aged woman repeatedly making
the offensive gesture and spitting at the protesters from the balcony of an
apartment in downtown Yerevan.
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service established that the apartment is the place of
residence of Simonian’s mother, Mariam Hovannisian.
Simonian confirmed later in the day Hovannisian was the one who stuck her middle
fingers out at the demonstrators. He claimed that she did so because some of
them recognized and insulted her.
Armenia - Parliament speaker Alen Simonian at a session of the National
Assembly, September 13, 2021.
“Knowing that this is our apartment, protesters shouted insults addressed to me
and my family,” he said. “In response to that, my mom lost her temper.”
There is no evidence in support of Simonian’s claim in the publicized video of
the incident.
The protesters were led by two opposition lawmakers. Simonian insisted that his
mother’s gestures were directed not at the lawmakers but at some of their
supporters. He suggested that she therefore cannot be prosecuted under a
controversial law passed by the Armenian parliament last year.
Armenia - Opposition protesters block a street in Yerevan, May 6, 2022.
The law made it a crime to gravely insult state officials and public figures.
Law-enforcement authorities have used it to prosecute dozens of government
critics in recent months.
RFE/RL journalists stumbled upon Simonian’s mother’s apartment last October as
they looked for the offices of an obscure construction firm managed by the
speaker’s brother. They discovered that the apartment matches one of the
company’s two officially registered addresses.
The company called Euroasphalt won earlier in 2021 two government contracts
worth a combined $1.4 million, raising suspicions of a conflict of interest and
even corruption. Simonian, who is a figure close to Pashinian, condemned
Armenian media outlets for questioning the integrity of those deals.
Armenian Police Try To Arrest Former Chief At Anti-Government Protest
• Robert Zargarian
Armenia - Security forces try to arrest former Armenian police chief Valeri
Osipian during an opposition demonstration in Yerevan, May 6, 2022.
The Armenian police attempted to arrest their former chief on Friday as he
participated in continuing anti-government protests organized by the country’s
leading opposition groups.
General Valeri Osipian joined one of four large groups of opposition supporters
who simultaneously marched to various parts of the city from its France Square,
the epicenter of the daily protests, early in the afternoon. The demonstrators
continued to condemn Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s policy on the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and demand his resignation.
One of the marching crowds was confronted by riot police after stopping at a
busy street intersection and blocking traffic through it. The police officers
jostled with the several hundred protesters and began arresting some of them.
Several officers dragged away Osipian, meeting with strong resistance from other
protesters, who tried to prevent the arrest. In ensuing chaotic scenes, it was
not clear whether they managed to take him into custody.
The police refused to clarify afterwards whether Osipian was among at least 59
opposition supporters detained on Friday.
The former police chief did not answer phone calls. He spoke to some media
outlets in France Square a couple of hours after the incident.
“They didn’t manage to take me away,” Osipian told the Hraparak daily. “People
didn’t let them do that.”
Armenia -- Armenian opposition leader Nikol Pashinian talks to police Colonel
Valeri Osipian during a rally in Yerevan, April 29, 2018.
Pashinian named Osipian to run the national police service in May 2018 two days
after being elected prime minister following weeks of anti-government protests
led by him. Osipian was until then a deputy head of Yerevan’s police department
responsible for public order and crowd control.
He personally monitored many anti-government rallies staged in the Armenian
capital during former President Serzh Sarkisian’s rule. Osipian frequently
warned and argued with Pashinian during the 2018 “Velvet Revolution” that
toppled Sarkisian.
Osipian was sacked in September 2019. He publicly voiced support for former
President Robert Kocharian in the run-up to last year’s snap parliamentary
elections.
Kocharian is the top leader of the Hayastan alliance, one of the two opposition
forces that launched the “civil disobedience” campaign aimed at toppling
Pashinian.
The ex-president’s younger son, Levon, was among demonstrators that marched
through other parts of Yerevan on Friday. They nearly clashed with riot police
at one point.
Levon Kocharian accused the police of trying to intimidate the opposition and
its supporters. “But I can definitely that that is having the opposite effect,”
he told reporters.
Court Refuses To Free Armenia’s Former Top Prosecutor
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Outgoing Prosecutor-General Aghvan Hovsepian speaks with journalists,
Yerevan, September 13, 2013.
A court in Yerevan on Friday refused to grant bail to former Prosecutor-General
Aghvan Hovsepian who was arrested last September on a string of corruption
charges denied by him.
Hovsepian served as Armenia’s chief prosecutor from 1998-1999 and 2004-2013. He
went on to become the first head of a newly created law-enforcement agency, the
Investigative Committee, in 2014. He ran the committee until the 2018 “velvet
revolution” that brought Nikol Pashinian to power.
Hovsepian was one of Armenia’s most powerful state officials during his tenure.
The 69-year-old now stands accused of bribery, money laundering and illegal
entrepreneurial activity. The Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC) claims that he
also misappropriated several properties while in office.
An ACC official leading the criminal investigation told RFE/RL’s Armenian
Service last month that Hovsepian abused his powers to earn roughly 6.8 billion
drams ($14.5 million) through various businesses controlled by him. His lawyer
insisted that the businesses belonged to his adult sons and that the
ex-prosecutor had nothing to do with them.
Hovsepian again denied the charges at the start of his trial earlier this week.
He said they are based on false testimony given by two individuals.
Hovsepian also hit out at ACC chief Sasun Khachatrian, who also used to work as
a prosecutor. He claimed that Khachatrian is taking revenge for his refusal to
give him a job in the Investigative Committee.
Defense lawyers petitioned the court to free their client from custody on bail.
The presiding judge, Mnatsakan Martirosian, rejected the request. The lawyers
said they will appeal against the decision.
The veteran judge is notorious for rarely making decisions going against the
current and former Armenian authorities’ wishes.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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