Monday,
Armenian Authorities Mull COVID-19 Health Pass
• Narine Ghalechian
France - A woman shows a COVID-19 health pass in a cafe in Paris, August 9, 2021.
Armenia’s health authorities are considering introducing a mandatory coronavirus
health pass for entry to cultural and leisure venues, Health Minister Anahit
Avanesian revealed on Monday.
Speaking in the Yerevan studio of RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, Avanesian said the
extraordinary measure may be needed to increase the very low vaccination rate in
the country of about 3 million.
According to the Armenian Ministry of Health, just over 344,000 people received
at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine and only 170,212 of them were fully
vaccinated as of October 10.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian deplored these “very bad” numbers last week and
said the authorities must rely on their “administrative levers” more heavily to
speed up the vaccination process.
Avanesian said her ministry is now looking into the experience of Western
countries where people must produce the health pass showing they have been
vaccinated against COVID-19 or have had a recent negative test in order to visit
bars, restaurants and other public venues.
“We are working on that,” she said, answering questions from Facebook users. “We
are collecting facts about what enforcement mechanisms should be put in place.”
“A tentative draft decision will be ready soon, within two weeks,” added the
minister.
The government has already taken other administrative measures in a bid to have
many more Armenians get vaccinated. A recent directive signed by Avanesian
requires virtually all public and private sector employees refusing vaccination
to take coronavirus tests twice a month at their own expense.
The requirement took effect on October 1, prompting protests from some
opposition politicians and anti-vaccine campaigners.
Avanesian again defended it. She argued that Armenian hospitals are increasingly
struggling to cope with a new wave of coronavirus infections that began this
summer.
The Ministry of Health has reported an average of over 1,000 cases and at least
20 coronavirus-related deaths a day over the past week.
Armenian Court OKs Heavier Fines For Defamation
Armenia - The Constitutional Court holds a hearing in Yerevan, July 9, 2021.
In a ruling condemned by press freedom groups, Armenia’s Constitutional Court
has upheld the constitutionality of a government-backed bill that will triple
maximum legal fines set for defamation.
The bill involving amendments to the Armenian Civil Code was drafted by a close
associate of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and passed by the National Assembly
in March. It stipulates that media outlets and individuals convicted of
“slander” could be fined as much as 6 million drams ($12,450) while those making
offensive claims will face a maximum fine of up to 2 million drams.
President Armen Sarkissian refused to sign the bill into law in April, saying he
shares concerns that it could be exploited by government officials and
politicians to stifle press freedom. Sarkissian also suggested that the bill is
“contentious in terms of its constitutionality ” and asked the Constitutional
Court to pass judgment on that.
In its verdict publicized at the weekend, the court ruled that the amendments do
not run counter to the Armenian constitution.
Armenia’s leading media associations expressed outrage at that conclusion in a
joint statement issued on Monday. They argued that it contradicts a
Constitutional Court ruling on the issue handed down in 2011 and accused the
court of ignoring Council of Europe recommendations and precedent-setting
decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.
The statement signed by 11 organizations also says: “Application of the
disproportionately strict measures would cause more damage than contribute to
the struggle against vices. Especially given that both politicians and officials
and representatives of various strata of the population often perceive criticism
directed at them as a defamation or insult and go to court. This could create
serious obstacles to unfettered activities of the media.”
The main author of the controversial bill, parliament speaker Alen Simonian,
earlier rejected such criticism echoed by Western watchdogs such as Freedom
House and Reporters Without Borders.
The Armenian media groups linked the heavier fines for defamation to what they
described as other curbs on news reporting imposed by the country’s current
leadership. Their statement points to recently enacted bills that banned media
outlets from citing social media accounts belonging to unknown individuals and
made it a crime to gravely insult state officials.
The Armenian authorities’ decision to criminalize slander and defamation was
strongly criticized by Freedom House late last month. The Washington-based group
said it testifies to a “clear degradation of democratic norms in Armenia,
including freedom of expression.”
Georgian PM Visits Armenia On ‘Mediation’ Mission
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia - Prime Ministers Nikol Pashinian of Armenia and Irakli Gharibashvili of
Georgia meet in Yerevan, October 9, 2021
Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili visited Yerevan and met with his
Armenian counterpart Nikol Pashinian on Saturday as part of his attempts to
improve Armenia’s relations with Azerbaijan.
Gharibashvili met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku late last
month three weeks after receiving Pashinian in Tbilisi. He said he discussed
with Aliyev “the importance of transforming the region” but did not elaborate.
Gharibashvili also divulged few details of his latest “productive” talks with
Pashinian. He tweeted on Sunday that they discussed a “new peace initiative for
the South Caucasus and Georgia’s readiness to pursue active mediation to create
more opportunities for sustainable peace and development in the region.”
“Tbilisi has taken on an active mediating role in normalizing relations between
its neighbors, notably Armenia and Azerbaijan,” the Georgian premier told
reporters on Monday. He again did not go into details.
An Armenian government statement on the talks said the two leaders “exchanged
thoughts on the situation and developments in the region.”
“The parties reaffirmed their readiness to consistently deepen bilateral
friendly ties and agreed to continue their active dialogue,” added the statement.
Speaking ahead of his September 29 trip to Baku, Gharibashvili said he could
play a “positive role” in building bridges between Georgia’s two South Caucasus
neighbors locked in a bitter conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. His foreign
minister, Davit Zalkaliani, said on Friday that he has already helped to
establish “active communication” between Yerevan and Baku.
In June, the Georgian government facilitated the release of 15 Armenian
soldiers, taken prisoner by Azerbaijan during last year’s war in
Nagorno-Karabakh, in exchange for maps of Armenian minefields provided to Baku.
It is not clear whether Tbilisi hopes to arrange more such swaps or assist in
the opening of Armenian-Azerbaijani transport links.
Alexander Iskandarian, the director of the Yerevan-based Caucasus Institute,
noted that Armenia has until now negotiated with Azerbaijan mainly with Russian
mediation.
“It’s hard to tell at this point just how serious these contacts [initiated by
Georgia] are and whether they can yield any results,” Iskandarian told RFE/RL’s
Armenian Service.
Pashinian paid an official visit to Georgia on September 8. Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan said afterwards that the Armenian prime minister
communicated through Gharibashvili an offer to meet with him and discuss the
possibility of normalizing Turkish-Armenian relations.
Erdogan appeared to make such a meeting conditional Armenia recognizing
Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh and agreeing to open a transport corridor
that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave.
The press offices of the Armenian and Georgian premiers refused to say on Monday
whether Turkish-Armenian relations were also on the agenda of their weekend
talks.
Karabakh Civilian Killed In Truce Violation
• Marine Khachatrian
Nagorno-Karabakh - A road sign at the entrance to the town of Martakert.
An ethnic Armenian farmer in Nagorno-Karabakh was shot dead by Azerbaijani
forces while working in his pomegranate grove at the weekend, authorities in
Stepanakert said.
The 55-year-old man, Aram Tepnants, was a resident of Martakert, a small town in
northern Karabakh town close to the Armenian-Azerbaijani “line of contact” in
and around the disputed territory.
“He worked with his own tractor and in his own grove,” a spokesman for the
Karabakh police told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Saturday. “An Azerbaijani army
sniper noticed him and fired in that direction, fatally wounding him.”
The Martakert mayor, Misha Gyurjian, said that Russian peacekeeping soldiers
deployed along the “line of contact” witnessed the incident. “Peacekeepers were
sitting with [Tepnants] inside his tractor,” claimed Gyurjian.
The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed on Sunday that the farmer was killed “as
a result of gunfire from the Azerbaijani side.”
“The Russian [peacekeeping] contingent command is conducting an investigation
into the incident with the participation of representatives of the two sides,”
the ministry said in a statement.
Azerbaijan denied that its troops killed the Karabakh Armenian civilian.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry insisted that he was killed by Azerbaijani sniper
fire and accused Baku of violating the terms of a Russian-brokered ceasefire
that stopped last year’s Armenian-Azerbaijani war. In a short statement, it
demanded a “proper investigation” into Tepnants’s death.
Tepnants is the first Karabakh civilian killed since the ceasefire came into
force on November 10, 2020.
In the last several months, Karabakh authorities have periodically accused
Azerbaijani troops of opening small arms fire at Karabakh villages mostly
located close to the town of Shushi (Shusha) occupied by them during the
six-week war. They have said that such incidents are aimed at intimidating
Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population and causing them to leave the territory.
The Karabakh foreign ministry charged that the purpose of the deadly shooting
outside Martakert was to not only trigger a “mass emigration” of Karabakh
Armenians but also undermine the Russian peacekeeping mission. It urged Russia,
the United States and France, the three world powers co-heading the OSCE Minsk
Group, to “hold the Azerbaijani side accountable and prevent such incidents in
the future.”
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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