REACTIONS: PAP, RPA EXCHANGE WARNINGS IN WAKE OF ATTACK ON POLITICAL ACTIVIST
POLITICS | 11.02.15 | 11:14
By GAYANE MKRTCHYAN
ArmeniaNow reporter
RELATED NEWS
PAP leader warned about “personal responsibility” for possible
escalation
The violent attack on Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) member Artak
Khachatryan, who was reportedly kidnapped and beaten over the weekend,
created discontent in the opposition-leaning party led by tycoon
Gagik Tsarukyan.
The political council of the party discussed the question of boycotting
Parliamentary works, unless the crime is disclosed.
The incident took place on February 7 near the Tashir department store
in Yerevan. Three armed men dressed in black and wearing masks forced
Khachatryan into a car and drove him in an unknown direction. He was
found five hours after the incident, near his house, unconscious and
beaten. The PAP member is known as an active participant in recent
protests against the controversial sales tax law.
Political forces had different reactions to the PAP call, with some
specifically saying that the chain of violence in the country takes
up a mass character, and people are attacked for their political
views and activities.
“Armenian law enforcement bodies cannot stop this atmosphere of
violence and cannot control the situation so that there is no violence
against citizens in Armenia,” Heritage Party member Zaruhi Postanjyan
told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
The PAP said that if the police do not promptly identify the people
who kidnapped and beat Artak Khachatryan, the party will demand that
a number of officials be dismissed. This statement was immediately
followed by ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) spokesperson
Eduard Sharmazanov’s response, “We consider emotional, surreal,
demagogue statements made by some of our colleagues unacceptable,
for which they, when in sober reasonable state, will probably feel
ashamed… No personnel changes or resignations are on the agenda.”
All this was then followed by Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan’s
opinion. In an interview with Tert.am he said that Gagik Tsarukyan
should personally monitor all statements coming out of the
political structure he leads, or else all “emotional nonsense” in
those statements will have to be accepted as his personal opinion,
and then responsibility for all possible political developments and
aggravations will lie with Tsarukyan.
It should be said that Tsarukyan and Abrahamyan are in-laws. Political
analyst Styopa Safaryan thinks that the PM faces a clear task: he
either solves problems with his in-law and the political force he
leads, or they both leave the arena.
“And as if Hovik Abrahamyan had never sent such a message to his
in-law, Gagik Tsarukyan, before, this time he does it clarifying that
if it continues they will appear on the opposite sides of the trench,
and then how each of them will save himself is a different problem,”
Safaryan told galatv.am.
Armenian National Congress (ANC) MP Levon Zurabyan thinks that the
violence against the PAP member is the government’s message to the
party, to the opposition troika and the public as a response to Gagik
Tsarukyan’s idea about change of government made during a conference
of non-governing forces on February 5.
According to Zurabyan, the government wants to show that the PAP has
crossed the line, which means that they can cross the line toward
the PAP, too.