COURT REFUSES TO REINSTATE ‘ANTI-GOVERNMENT’ ACADEMIC
By Ruzanna Stepanian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
July 18 2007
An Armenian appeals court on Wednesday refused to reinstate a young
university professor who was fired earlier this year for criticizing
the government during his lectures.
Sasun Saribekian, who taught political and economic geography at
Yerevan State University (YSU), was dismissed last March following
a written complaint singed by some of his students.
In their joint letter to the YSU rector Aram Simonian, the 30
signatories said Saribekian used his classes to "discredit" the
government and the university management and to instill in them
"pessimism about the country’s future." They also claimed that the
33-year-old lecturer tricked them into attending a meeting with a
radical opposition leader.
Saribekian has strongly denied the claims, saying that the students
were forced to sign the letter by Simonian, who he claims fired
him at the behest of the Armenian authorities and the National
Security Service (NSS) in particular. "They want to show that those
who will try to tell the truth about the situation in the country,
the processes going on in the university will be punished," he told
RFE/RL on Wednesday.
Saribekian claimed that he only he made an "objective assessment of
the political and economic situation in the country" and never forced
any of his students to listen to Aram Karapetian, the leader of the
opposition Nor Zhamanakner party.
However, Simonian, who is a senior member of the governing Republican
Party of Armenia (HHK), insisted that Saribekian lost his job because
of committing a serious violation of YSU rules, and not for political
reasons. "We not persecuting anyone for their political activities,"
the YSU rector told RFE/RL. "We don’t have the right to do that."
Simonian went on to accuse his former employee of urging students to
emigrate from the country. "I remember one young man saying that he
did not want to live here after Saribekian’s lectures," he said.
An extensive report on the affair that appeared in the ArmeniaNow.com
online publication last week said that some of the letter’s signatories
admitted that they never attended Saribekian’s lecturers.
It also quoted several other students as saying that they disagreed
with the allegations contained in the letter but chose to sign it
out of "solidarity" with their class.
The report also quoted two senior YSU professors saying that the
NSS may have indeed been instrumental in Saribekian’s ouster. The
Armenian successor to the KGB is widely believed to continue the
Soviet-era practice of assigning so-called "curators" to YSU and
other state universities. Human rights groups say their function is
to monitor and suppress anti-government activity among students and
their professors critical of the regime.
Saribekian sued the YSU management later in the spring, demanding
that his dismissal be deemed null and void. However, a Yerevan court
of first instance rejected the demand last month.
The higher Court of Appeals effectively declared the dismissal
unsubstantiated, brushing aside YSU claims that Saribekian violated
students’ "constitutional right to education." But citing a clause
in Armenia’s Labor Code, the court ruled at the same time that he
can not be reinstated because of his "strained relationship" with
the YSU management.