RFE/RL Armenian Report – 01/29/2020

                                        Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Chinese Nationals Hospitalized In Armenia For Virus Tests
January 29, 2020
        • Susan Badalian

China -- Medical staff members wear protective clothing to help stop the spread 
of a deadly virus accompanying a patient as they walk into a hospital in Wuhan, 
January 26, 2020.

Two Chinese citizens were taken on Wednesday to a hospital in Armenia and tested 
there for possible cases of a dangerous new virus which has infected thousands 
of people in China and killed at least 132 of them.

Officials in Yerevan said they were hospitalized after being barred from again 
entering neighboring Georgia at the main Armenian-Georgian border crossing.

According to Liana Torosian, a senior official from the National Center for 
Disease Control and Prevention, one of the Chinese travellers showed no symptoms 
of any virus while the other only had a mild fever and is now undergoing an 
X-ray examination of their lungs at a Yerevan hospital specializing in treatment 
of infectious diseases.

“Let’s see what results the X-ray will produce,” Torosian told reporters. “The 
condition of both patients is satisfactory at the moment. They will certainly 
remain under medical surveillance in separate insulated wards.”

Torosian insisted that the likelihood of either Chinese national suffering from 
the new kind of coronavirus is low because they had left China before the 
disease outbreak. “During the entire [two-week disease] incubation period they 
were in Georgia and Armenia and had no health issues,” she said.

There have been around 6,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus nationwide in 
China so far. Dozens of other cases have been confirmed outside mainland China 
as well, including in Europe, North America, and elsewhere in Asia.

Nobody has been diagnosed with the coronavirus in Armenia, according to the 
country’s medical authorities. Speaking at a joint news conference with 
Torosian, Deputy Health Minister Lena Nanushian said Armenia is considered a 
low-risk zone for the spread of the virus not least because of the absence of 
direct flights to China. Nanushian said the health authorities are examining 
Armenian citizens returning from China via third countries and taking other 
precautions.

The Foreign Ministry in Yerevan last week advised Armenians to refrain from 
travelling to China for now. It said six Armenians live in the Chinese city of 
Wuhan lying at the epicenter of the outbreak.

Torosian admitted that the authorities currently lack the capacity to 
definitively detect cases of the coronavirus through laboratory testing. But she 
said they should be equipped to do so by the end of next week.



High Court Chief Again Rules Out Resignation
January 29, 2020
        • Gayane Saribekian

Armenia -- Constituional Court Chairman Hrayr Tovmasian speaks to journalists, 
Yerevan, December 27, 2019.

Constitutional Court Chairman Hrayr Tovmasian has said that he will not step 
down despite facing criminal charges and growing pressure from Armenia’s 
political leadership.

“What doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger,” Tovmasian told 168.am in a video 
interview posted late on Tuesday. “I will not respect myself if I back away, for 
the reasons mentioned by you, from the issues, the mission assigned to me.”

“You would not respect me, nobody would respect me [in that case,] and I would 
consider that a humiliation,” he said, adding that he will therefore “fight to 
the end” in the increasingly acrimonious standoff.

The remarks followed a series of renewed verbal attacks on him launched by Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian. Speaking at a weekend news conference, Pashinian 
labeled Tovmasian as a “representative of the corrupt former regime” who 
“offered his services” and cozied up to him following the 2018 “Velvet 
Revolution.”

Pashinian went on to state that law-enforcement authorities’ allegations that 
Tovmasian illegally became the head of Armenia highest court shortly before the 
revolution are “effectively proven and irrefutable.”

Tovmasian deplored that claim, saying that Pashinian violated the presumption of 
innocence guaranteed by the Armenian constitution.

“Are you a court?” he said, appealing to the premier. “Are you an investigator? 
Where did you get such information from to determine [Tovmasian’s guilt?] What 
will you do when national or international courts rule tomorrow that none of 
that happened?”

“If they want to pressure me in this way then I have to say that … they should 
not try in vain,” he added.

The Special Investigative Service (SIS) claimed in October that the former 
Armenian parliament elected Tovmasian court chairman as a result of an illegal 
seizure of the judicial authority by a “group of officials.” It said that took 
the form of forgery committed by former parliament speaker Ara Babloyan and one 
of his top staffers. Both men strongly deny relevant accusations leveled against 
them.

In late December, a senior prosecutor declined to endorse those accusations, 
ordering the SIS to conduct an “additional investigation.”

A few days later, Tovmasian was indicted on other, unrelated charges. 
Prosecutors said that he unlawfully privatized an office in Yerevan and forced 
state notaries to rent other premises “de facto” belonging to him when he served 
as Armenia’s justice minister from 2010-2014. Tovmasian rejects the accusations 
as baseless and politically motivated.

The chief justice also indicated in his latest interview that he may backpedal 
on his stated decision to file a defamation lawsuit against Pashinian.

“Maybe I got emotional at that point and spoke of going to court,” he said. “But 
I think that everything has become clear to the public and everyone now has the 
answer to that question. I will again talk to my legal team and decide.”



Soros Foundation In Armenia Decries ‘Smear Campaign’
January 29, 2020
        • Nane Sahakian

Armenia -- Larisa Minasian, director of Open Society Foundations-Armenia, speaks 
at a news conference in Yerevan, January 29, 2020.

The Armenian branch of U.S. billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundations 
(OSF) on Wednesday accused radical anti-government forces of conducting an 
“unprecedented” smear campaign against it and its local partners.

“A large-scale counterpropaganda and an unprecedentedly aggressive information 
campaign, accompanied by hate speech and often overt calls for violence, is 
waged against the foundation and our partners for quite some time,” the 
OSF-Armenia director, Larisa Minasian, told a news conference.

Minasian said that the effort is aimed at preventing OSF from supporting various 
reforms announced by the Armenian government.

“We realize that the civil society’s potential to demand and support systemic 
changes in Armenia is what made us and our partners the target of this smear 
campaign,” she said. “Also targeted is public trust in our country’s democratic 
institutions, the legitimately elected National Assembly and the government 
formed by it.”

Minasian complained that some Armenian media outlets help OSF detractors spread 
false claims about Soros and activities financed by his charity in Armenia and 
other countries. She insisted in particular that the prominent philanthropist 
has never provoked or assisted in any anti-government revolt.

“George Soros made his fortune in the financial markets of democratic countries 
that are strictly regulated by regulatory bodies,” she added.

Minasian also dismissed claims that OSF has been promoting a resolution of the 
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict which would benefit Azerbaijan. “The foundation has 
never financed any propaganda of pacifism towards Azerbaijan or any initiative 
related to the Karabakh conflict,” she said.

Nationalist groups as well as some individual activists opposed to Prime 
Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government have increasingly attacked OSF in their 
public statements made since the 2018 “Velvet Revolution.” They allege that the 
government is furthering Soros’s secret political agenda in Armenia which they 
say poses a serious threat to national security and traditional Armenian values. 
Some of them have gone as far as to claim that Soros was behind the “revolution” 
that brought Pashinian to power.

Minasian already shrugged off those claims during a March 2019 news conference 
in Yerevan. In a separate statement issued at the time, OSF-Armenia said it will 
continue to support “civil society organizations and all Armenians working to 
advance sustainable, systemic reforms.”

Over the past two decades OSF has provided a total of about $53 million in 
grants to Armenian non-governmental organizations and individuals. They have 
been spent on hundreds of projects implemented in a wide range of areas, 
including education, human rights, judicial reforms and media.



Former Armenian President To Go On Trial
January 29, 2020
        • Naira Nalbandian

Armenia -- Former President Serzh Sarkisian attends the funeral of former 
National Security Service Director Georgi Kutoyan, Yerevan, January 20, 2020.

Armenian prosecutors have paved the way for a trial of former President Serzh 
Sarkisian, formally endorsing corruption charges brought against him.

A spokeswoman for the Office of the Prosecutor-General, Arevik Khachatrian, told 
RFE/RL’s Armenian service that the indictment was sent to a court in Yerevan on 
Wednesday.

Armenia’s Judicial Department said, though, that it has not yet received 
materials of the criminal case.

The Special Investigative Service (SIS) charged Sarkisian in early December with 
organizing the “embezzlement by a group of officials” of 489 million drams (just 
over $1 million) in government funds allocated in 2013 for the provision of 
subsidized diesel fuel to farmers.

The SIS claimed that Sarkisian interfered in a government tender for the fuel 
supplier to ensure that it is won by a company belonging to his longtime friend, 
businessman Barsegh Beglarian, rather than another fuel importer that offered a 
lower price. It also indicted Barseghian and three former government officials. 
All five suspects deny the accusations.

In a statement released last week, Sarkisian’s lawyers insisted that the 
accusations are baseless and are part of his “political persecution” by the 
current Armenian authorities.

Artashes Mayilian, a senior SIS official who led the probe, dismissed those 
claims when he spoke to RFE/RL’s Armenian service on January 24.

The high-profile case is reportedly based on former Agriculture Minister Sergo 
Karapetian’s incriminating testimony against the ex-president. Karapetian and 
his former deputy Samvel Galstian are among the five suspects.

Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) has also described the charges as 
politically motivated. It says that the ex-president is prosecuted in 
retaliation for his public criticism of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.

Sarkisian, who ruled Armenia from 2008-2018, accused Pashinian’s government of 
jeopardizing democracy and stifling dissent in a November speech at a congress 
of the European People’s Party held in Croatia. He had kept a low profile since 
resigning in April 2018 amid Pashinian-led mass protests against his continued 
rule.

Pashinian has repeatedly implicated Sarkisian, his family and political 
entourage in corruption both before and after coming to power in the “Velvet 
Revolution.”



Parliament Majority Leader Wants Police To Explain Detentions
January 29, 2020
        • Ruzanna Stepanian

Armenia -- Lilit Makunts, the parliamentary leader of the ruling My Step bloc, 
at a news conference in Yerevan, May 6, 2019.

Lilit Makunts, the parliamentary leader of the ruling My Step alliance, said on 
Wednesday that the Armenian police must explain why they briefly detained at 
least four activists highly critical of the government.

The police said on Tuesday that two of the outspoken activists, Narek Malian and 
Konstantin Ter-Nakalian, were held in custody for several hours on suspicion of 
illegal arms possession. They did not comment on two other detentions which were 
reported later in the day.

Immediately after being set free without charge, the activists claimed that 
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian ordered the police actions in a bid to humiliate 
and bully them.

Representatives of the two opposition parties represented in Armenian parliament 
expressed concern over the detentions. Arman Abovian of the Prosperous Armenia 
Party cited “quite serious questions” about their legality and timing.

Taron Simonian, a lawmaker representing the Bright Armenia Party, saw “no 
obvious grounds” for the detentions carried out by masked officers of a special 
police unit tasked with combatting organized crime. “I am asking and urging our 
police officers to stick to the letter of the law,” he said.

Makunts, who leads the parliamentary group of Pashinian’s My Step bloc, reacted 
to those concerns.

“I think that law-enforcement bodies should present explanations of the grounds 
on which they took the actions,” Makunts told reporters. “I don’t think that 
it’s right to evaluate those grounds that before the law-enforcers present them.”

“As for the detained individuals, if they think that their rights were violated 
there are all necessary legal provisions for them to protect their rights,” she 
said. “In the meantime, we will wait for the police explanations.”

Makunts added that she will raise the matter with the acting chief of the 
national police, Arman Sargsian, when he meets with My Step lawmakers on 
Thursday.

One of those lawmakers, Hayk Konjorian, denied that the radical activists are 
persecuted for their political views and activities.

“Only politicians can be subjected to political persecution in any hypothetical 
situation,” said Konjorian. “There is no political persecution in Armenia. 
Armenia has a fully democratic system. The individuals who were detained 
yesterday are not politicians.”

Malian used to work as an adviser to former police chief Vladimir Gasparian and 
now leads a group called Veto. Ter-Nakalian and another activist, Artur 
Danielian, are the leaders of the nationalist Adekvad movement. Both groups rely 
heavily on social media in their campaigns against the government.


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