Thursday,
Arrests Made After Anti-Pashinian Protests
• Gayane Saribekian
Armenia - Riot police guarding the Office of the Prosecutor-General in Yerevan
clash with protesters demanding the release of arrested residents of Syunik
province, .
Law-enforcement authorities detained on Thursday several local government
officials and other residents of Armenia’s Syunik province where Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian faced angry protests during an unexpected visit on Wednesday.
The state human rights ombudsman, Arman Tatoyan, suggested that at least two of
them were mistreated in custody and accused Pashinian of issuing illegal orders
to investigators.
The detainees included Mkhitar Zakarian, the mayor of the towns of Agarak and
Meghri making up a single local community.
Scores of angry local residents insulted Pashinian and blamed him for Armenia’s
defeat in last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh as he walked through the towns on
Thursday morning. The prime minister was jeered by a group of other protesters
when he headed to Syunik’s capital Kapan later in the day.
Meeting with senior law-enforcement officers there, Pashinian described the
protests as a “violation of the law” and demanded “tough” reactions to them from
the Armenian police and National Security Service (NSS). His press secretary
claimed that the protests were organized by his political foes.
Tatoyan condemned the protesters for swearing at Pashinian. But the ombudsman
also deplored Pashinian’s “unacceptable” remarks made during the Kapan meeting,
saying that government officials have no right to order criminal investigations
into “concrete individuals.”
Zakarian, the Meghri and Agarak mayor, was arrested after being taken to Yerevan
early in the morning. His lawyer, Gayane Papoyan, said Armenia’s Investigative
Committee suspects him of organizing the protests accompanied by what it regards
as “hooliganism.”
“They can’t explain the basis of their suspicion,” Papoyan told reporters. She
denied her client’s involvement in the protests.
Armenia - Meghri community head Mkhitar Zakarian.
The Investigative Committee did not comment on Zakarian’s arrest or say who else
was taken into custody.
Zakarian and the elected heads of virtually all other Syunik communities
demanded Pashinian’s resignation late last year.
Another detainee, Menua Hovsepian, is a deputy mayor of Goris, another Syunik
town which Pashinian briefly visited on Wednesday. His legal status remained
unclear as of Thursday evening.
A representative of Tatoyan’s office was allowed to talk to Hovsepian at a
police station in Yerevan. In a statement, the ombudsman said Hovsepian claimed
to have been beaten up and verbally abused by police officers. He said he will
send an “appropriate letter” to the Office of the Prosecutor-General.
Tatoyan also decried the treatment of another Syunik detainee, Ararat
Aghabekian. Lawyer Papoyan publicized a mobile phone video of law-enforcement
officers bringing him to the Investigative Committee headquarters in Yerevan. It
showed a handcuffed and visibly ill Aghabekian imploring them to call an
ambulance and hospitalize him.
Aghabekian is a well-known resident of the Syunik village of Shurnukh run by his
brother Hakob Arshakian. The latter said that police officers broke into his
home overnight and took him away without any explanation.
“He didn’t participate in the protests. The guy was sick and lay in bed for the
last ten days,” Arshakian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Tatoyan’s office also received reports of several other arrests made in Syunik.
The ombudsman said that among these detainees are a member of Goris’s municipal
council and a village administration chief.
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian visits a military base in Syunik, April
21, 2021
Vahe Hakobian, a Syunik-linked businessman and politician critical of the
Armenian government, claimed that the authorities made more than two dozen
“illegal” arrests in response to the anti-Pashinian protests.
A deputy chief of the national police, Armen Fidanian, insisted, however, that
only “two or three” men were taken in for interrogation. Fidanian denied that
the investigation is illegally directed by Pashinian.
Armen Khachatrian, a pro-government lawmaker who accompanied the prime minister
on the trip to Syunik, also denied any political persecution. “There is no
question that what happened was hooliganism,” he said.
Opposition groups claimed the opposite, praising the Syunik protesters and
condemning the arrests.
Hundreds of opposition supporters rallied outside the prosecutors’ headquarters
in Yerevan on Thursday evening to demand the immediate release of all detainees.
They clashed with riot police guarding the building.
Syunik borders districts southwest of Karabakh which were mostly recaptured by
Azerbaijan during the autumn war. As a result of a Russian-brokered ceasefire
that stopped the war on November 10, Armenian army units and local militias
completed in December their withdrawal from parts of those districts close to
Kapan and other local communities.
Shurnukh was effectively divided into two parts as a result of the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border delimitation that left many Syunik residents
seriously concerned about their security.
The small village was the first stop of Pashinian’s unannounced regional tour
which began late on Tuesday. The premier went into one or two Shurnukh houses
and briefly talked to their residents. One of them said afterwards she told
Pashinian that he is not welcome in her home.
Armenia’s former President Levon Ter-Petrosian on Thursday accused Pashinian of
breaking into the woman’s home without permission, saying that was “the most
disgusting moment of Pashinian’s Syunik expedition.”
“I would not like to see my country’s prime minister in a more humiliating
situation,” Ter-Petrosian said in a short statement posted on ilur.am.
Biden Expected To Recognize Armenian Genocide
• Lusine Musayelian
• Astghik Bedevian
USA – President Joe Biden speaks to Department of Defense personnel at the
Pentagon. Washington, February 10, 2021
U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to recognize the 1915 mass killings of
Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as genocide, according to multiple Western media
reports.
Citing three unnamed “sources familiar with the matter,” the Reuters news agency
reported on Thursday that Biden will likely use the word “genocide” in his April
24 statement on the 106th anniversary of the start of the massacres that left an
estimated 1.5 million Armenians dead.
“My understanding is that he took the decision and will use the word genocide in
his statement on Saturday,” said one of them.
CNN quoted, for its part, U.S. government sources as saying that Washington has
already notified its Western allies about Biden’s intention to recognize the
genocide.
Biden repeatedly pledged to do that when he ran for president. “The United
States must reaffirm, once and for all, our record on the Armenian Genocide,” he
said in a September 2019 letter to the Armenian Assembly of America.
Earlier this week more than 100 U.S. lawmakers led by Democratic Congressman
Adam Schiff sent an open letter to Biden urging him to honor that pledge.
Armenian President Armen Sarkissian likewise called on Biden to “reaffirm your
commitment to advance historical justice and prevent new genocides” in a letter
released by his office on Thursday.
Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazian echoed Sarkissian’s appeal in comments to The New
York Times. He said the U.S. president’s recognition of the Armenian genocide
would send a strong “moral signal” to many countries.
U.S. - Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian (C), U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and
other officials attend an ecumenical memorial service held at Washington
National Cathedral on the centenary of the Armenian genocide, May 7, 2015.
The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate recognized the 1915 genocide in
separate resolutions overwhelmingly passed in 2019.
Successive U.S. presidents have until now refrained from doing so for fear of
antagonizing Turkey, a NATO ally vehemently denying any premeditated government
effort to exterminate the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian population. Some of them,
including Barack Obama and Donald Trump, used instead the Armenian phrase “Meds
Yeghern” (Great Crime) in their April 24 statements.
According to U.S. officials interviewed by The New York Times, Biden is mindful
of the risk of a further deterioration of U.S.-Turkish relations but seems
determined to “further human rights” on the international stage.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed the issue with his High
Consultations Council on Thursday. “Our President has stated that they will
continue to defend truths against the so-called Armenian genocide lie and those
who support this slander with political motivations,” Erdogan’s office said.
Ian Bremmer, founder of the Eurasia Group research and consulting firm, told
Reuters that Erdogan’s response to Biden's expected move will likely be limited.
"Erdogan is ... unlikely to provoke the U.S. with actions that could further
undermine Turkey’s weak economy," he said.
Prosecutors Appeal Against Kocharian’s Acquittal
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Former President Robert Kocharian talks to his lawyers during his
trial, Yerevan, April 2, 2021.
Prosecutors have appealed against an Armenian court’s decision to throw out coup
charges brought against former President Robert Kocharian in connection with the
2008 post-election violence in Yerevan.
Anna Danibekian, a Yerevan judge presiding over the two-year trial of Kocharian
and three other former officials, announced the decision on April 6 ten days
after the charges were declared unconstitutional by Armenia’s Constitutional
Court.
The high court argued that they cannot be prosecuted for the alleged “overthrow
of the constitutional order” because there was no such article in the country’s
former Criminal Code which was in force during the events of March 2008.
In response to that ruling, Prosecutor-General Artur Davtian asked the
Constitutional Court to also declare unconstitutional legal provisions that do
not allow his office to alter the coup accusations leveled against the
defendants.
Other prosecutors said the coup trial should therefore be suspended, rather than
discontinued altogether, pending a Constitutional Court verdict on the appeal.
Danibekian dismissed their arguments.
A spokeswoman for Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General, Arevik
Khachatrian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Thursday that the law-enforcement
agency has asked the Court of Appeals to overturn Danibekian’s decision to clear
Kocharian of the coup charges.
The judge also ruled on April 6 that Kocharian and his former chief of staff,
Armen Gevorgian, will continue to stand trial only on bribery charges which they
also strongly deny. She fully acquitted the two other defendants, retired
Generals Yuri Khachaturov and Seyran Ohanian, who were prosecuted only in
connection with the post-election unrest.
Azerbaijan Accused Of Truce Violations In Karabakh
• Artak Khulian
Nagorno-Karabakh - Azerbaijani soldiers patrol at a checkpoint outside the town
of Shushi on November 26, 2020.
Authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh on Thursday accused Azerbaijani troops of
opening fire on local settlements in breach of a Russian-brokered ceasefire that
stopped last year’s Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
Karabakh’s Armenian-backed Defense Army said that the ceasefire violations have
intensified in recent days.
“While enemy forces previously mainly fired in the air, gunshots fired towards
the Defense Army’s combat positions and civilian border settlements have now
become more frequent,” it claimed in a statement.
It said the Azerbaijani army’s “provocative and aggressive actions” are aimed
intimidating Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population and undermining Russia’s
peacekeeping mission in the disputed region launched right after the war.
“Any attempt to terrorize the people of Artsakh is doomed to fail,” read a
separate statement released by the Karabakh foreign ministry.
It said that Azerbaijani troops targeted on Wednesday Stepanakert and two nearby
villages located close to the Karabakh city of Shushi (Shusha) which was
captured by them during the six-week war.
The gunfire reportedly damaged the roof of a Stepanakert house rented by a
Karabakh Armenian man, Khachatur Munchian, and his family that fled Shushi
during the fighting.
“The ceiling was also punctured and a bullet lay next to the hole,” Munchian
told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. He said the house is located just a few
kilometers from the nearest Azerbaijani army position.
A spokesman for the Karabakh police said they are investigating the shooting
incident and have alerted Russian peacekeepers about it.
Baku did not immediately respond to the reports. It accused Armenian troops
instead of firing on Azerbaijani border guards from Armenia’s Syunik province
bordering the Zangelan district recaptured by the Azerbaijani army during the
war.
Armenia’s Defense Ministry dismissed the claim as an attempt to dodge
responsibility for the ceasefire violations in Karabakh.
“The armed forces of both Armenia and Artsakh remain committed to the trilateral
ceasefire agreement and call on Azerbaijan’s military-political leadership to do
the same,” it said in a statement.
Armenian media quoted the mayor of Syunik’s capital Kapan, Gevorg Parsian, as
saying that Armenian and Azerbaijani forces stationed in the area exchanged fire
late on Wednesday.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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