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    Categories: 2022

RFE/RL Armenian Report – 07/14/2022

                                        Thursday, 


Armenian Police To Expand Public Video Surveillance

        • Sargis Harutyunyan

Armenia - A control room of the Security Dream company operating speed radars 
and cameras, Yerevan, September 5, 2014.


The Armenian government allowed the national police on Thursday to set up a 
centralized system of video surveillance designed to facilitate the fight 
against crime and improve road safety.

The new surveillance network will comprise all speed radars on Armenia’s streets 
and highways as well as separate video cameras used for collecting street 
parking fees in Yerevan, which have been operated by two private firms for 
almost a decade. It will also be connected to security cameras installed inside 
shops, restaurants, casinos and other private businesses across the country.

The chief of the Armenian police, Vahe Ghazarian, indicated that police officers 
will also view many cameras to be placed in other public areas. He did not 
specify their number or location.

Ghazarian said that the expanded surveillance system will have a “substantial 
positive impact on improving the security environment.” Law-enforcement bodies 
will be in a better position to maintain public order, prevent and solve crimes 
and hunt for fugitive criminal suspects, he told a weekly cabinet meeting in 
Yerevan chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.

Pashinian praised the police initiative. But he said nothing about the amount of 
government funding that will be provided for its realization.

Samvel Martirosian, an independent cyber security expert, cautioned that while 
the new surveillance network will likely make it easier for the police to combat 
crime it could be vulnerable to hacker attacks and information leaks. He said it 
is not clear how the government will protect citizens’ personal data and who 
exactly will have access to it.



New Armenian Army Chief Appointed


Armenia - Major-General Edward Asrian holds a news briefing, Yerevan, May 27, 
2021.


President Vahagn Khachaturian on Thursday appointed a new chief of the Armenian 
army’s General Staff handpicked by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, filling a 
position that has been vacant for nearly five months.

The appointment of Major-General Edward Asrian was announced just over a week 
after the Armenian parliament approved a government bill that made the country’s 
top general directly subordinate to the defense minister.

The previous army chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Artak Davtian, and six 
other senior generals were sacked in February through presidential decrees also 
initiated by Pashinian.

The sackings came one year after Davtian’s predecessor, Onik Gasparian, and 40 
other high-ranking officers issued a joint statement accusing Pashinian’s 
government of incompetence and misrule and demanding its resignation.

Incidentally, Asrian was among the signatories of the February 2021 statement 
welcomed by the Armenian opposition but condemned by Pashinian as a coup attempt.

Some pro-government lawmakers have acknowledged that Pashinian’s administration 
hopes the bill passed by the National Assembly on July 7 will prevent the army 
top brass from challenging them in the future.

Under the bill criticized by the opposition, the chief of the General Staff will 
also hold the post of first deputy defense minister. But he will not perform 
ministerial duties if Defense Minister Suren Papikian is absent from the country.

Pashinian promised a major reform of the military shortly after Armenia’s defeat 
in the 2020 war with Azerbaijan. He has replaced three defense ministers since a 
Russian-brokered ceasefire stopped the six-week hostilities in November 2020.

Opposition forces blame Pashinian for the disastrous war that left at least 
3,800 Armenian soldiers dead. They also say that his administration is doing 
little to rebuild the armed forces.



Ruling Party Holds Back On Ousting Armenian Opposition From Parliament

        • Astghik Bedevian

Armenia - Riot police guard the entrance to the headquarters of the ruling Civil 
Contract party in Yerevan, June 20, 2022.


A senior member of the ruling Civil Contract party said on Thursday that it will 
not strip opposition deputies boycotting sessions of Armenia’s parliament of 
their seats for now.

The leadership of the National Assembly affiliated with the party has 
increasingly threatened in recent weeks to ask the Constitutional Court to take 
such action. It was due to discuss the matter at a meeting slated for Thursday 
evening.

“We have decided not to start such a process at this stage,” Hrachya Hakobian, a 
Civil Contract lawmaker, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service hours before the 
scheduled meeting.

“But we don’t exclude that one day we will again discuss stripping them of their 
mandates,” he said. “I don’t exclude that the [ruling party’s parliamentary] 
faction will once again organize a discussion on this issue in September or 
October.”

Hakobian, who is also Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s brother-in-law, said the 
parliament’s pro-government majority is giving the opposition lawmakers another 
chance to return to the parliament.

Armenia - Empty seats of opposition deputies boycotting a session of parliament, 
Yerevan, June 14, 2022.

One of those lawmakers, Gegham Manukian, dismissed the explanation, saying that 
the Armenian authorities simply want to avoid another blow to their democratic 
credentials.

“I presume that some smart guy, who is definitely not a parliament deputy, told 
them, ‘Guys you are going way over the top, disgracing the country, destroying 
the last ruins of our democratic bastion,’ and that’s why they came out with 
such a statement,” he said.

The 35 members of the 107-seat parliament representing the opposition Hayastan 
and Pativ Unem alliances began the boycott in April in advance of their daily 
demonstrations demanding Pashinian’s resignation. One of their leaders made 
clear on Monday that they will continue their boycott and hold more 
antigovernment rallies in the weeks ahead.

Under Armenian law, a parliament deputy can lose their seat if they skip, for 
“non-legitimate” reasons, at least half of parliament votes during a single 
semi-annual session of the National Assembly. The final decision to that effect 
is to be made by the Constitutional Court.

The parliament’s leadership said earlier this week all 29 deputies representing 
Hayastan and four others affiliated with Pativ Unem can now be formally accused 
of absenteeism.


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