Monday,
Armenian Authorities Accused Of Trying To Fire Jailed Oppositionist’s Brother
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - The main entrance to the Armenian Central Bank.
Armenia’s Central Bank on Monday did not confirm or deny reports that one of its
senior executives is facing strong government pressure to resign because of
being the brother of a jailed opposition politician.
The politician, Avetik Chalabian, was arrested on May 13 on charges of trying to
pay university students to participate in daily anti-government demonstrations
in Yerevan. He rejects the accusations as government retribution for his active
participation in the protests launched by the Armenian opposition on May 1.
Chalabian referred to himself as a political “hostage” in a letter to his wife,
Anahit Adamian, read out by her at a news conference in Yerevan on Monday.
“As if this was not enough, my brother, Ara Chalabian, is being subjected to
illegal and crude repression,” he wrote.
Armenia - The wife and lawyers of arrested opposition figure Avetik Chalabian
hold a news conference in Yerevan, .
Ara Chalabian is the head of the Central Bank’s Department of Corporate Services
and Development. Citing an opposition figure close to Avetik, Armenian news
websites claimed earlier this month that the Central Bank governor, Martin
Galstian, has told him to step down.
An article subsequently posted on Hetq.am said the Chalabians’ father made the
same allegation during a private conversation. It said Galstian told Ara
Chalabian that he was “forced to do so by the government” and that Galstian
himself will have to tender his resignation if Ara refuses to quit.
Galstian, who was installed as Central Bank governor by the Armenian parliament
in 2020, has not personally reacted to the allegations.
In a short written comment to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, his press office said:
“The Central Bank does not provide personal information about third parties.”
The bank is supposedly independent from Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s
government. The latter has not commented on the alleged pressure on Galstian.
Armenia - Cental Bank governor Martin Galstian speaks during a cabinet meeting
in Yerevan, July 13, 2022.
Ara Chalabian also remains silent on the subject. There have been no official
announcements of his dismissal or resignation so far.
The criminal case against Avetik Chalabian is based on leaked audio of short
fragments of his conversations with Tornik Aliyan, the chairman of the student
council of the Armenian National Agrarian University. Law-enforcement
authorities say it shows that Chalabian offered to pay Aliyan 2 million drams
($4,800) for the presence of 2,000 students at opposition rallies.
Chalabian’s lawyers insisted on Monday that the recording, which first appeared
on a pro-government website, was doctored by the authorities. They again
demanded the release of full audio of the conversation, saying that it would
disprove the accusations leveled against their client.
Avetik Chalabian, 49, leads a small opposition party. He is also a co-founder of
a private charity helping the Armenian military as well as border villages in
Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenia Plans Another Satellite
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia - Minister of High-Technology Industry Robert Khachatrian speaks to
RFE/RL in Yerevan, .
A second Armenian satellite will be launched into space in the near future,
Minister of High-Technology Industry Robert Khachatrian said on Monday.
“The second one will also be a satellite designed to take pictures,” Khachatrian
told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “I can’t give any dates [for its launch,] but
[it should happen] circa 2023 or 2024.”
The Armenian government announced the launch of the first-ever Armenian
satellite in late May. The apparently small device named ArmSat-1 was carried
into space by a SpaceX rocket that blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station in Florida. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said it will be used for a
wide range of purposes, including border control, natural disaster management
and geology.
The government is understood is to have purchased ArmSat-1 from Satlantis, a
Spanish company that specializes in the production of small satellites and
cameras for them. It has still not revealed financial terms of the deal or
technical parameters of the satellite, fuelling skepticism among its critics
about the significance of the project.
Armenia - A handout photo of Armenia's first satellite released by the Armenian
government on May 26, 2022.
Khachatrian reaffirmed government plans to open a satellite operations center in
Armenia before the end of this year. The government has already commissioned
equipment for the center and started preparations for training its personnel,
added the minister.
Armenia’s arch-foe Azerbaijan launched its first communication and observation
satellite into space in 2013. The Azerbaijani army reportedly used satellite
images for its offensive military operations carried out during the 2020 war in
Nagorno-Karabakh.
Khachatrian said that his government is also discussing with Satlantis and other
firms the possibility of manufacturing observation satellites in Armenia.
“We are negotiating with various companies to see what capacities exist in
Armenia and how they can be used properly,” he said. “Such capacities did exist
in Armenia in Soviet times and they have been partly preserved. We have good
ideas and specialists here whose skills could be put to good use.”
Armenians Still Prosecuted For Insulting Pashinian
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Artak Avetian, who was barred from leaving Armenia because of
allegedly insulting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, speaks to RFE/RL, Yerevan,
July 23, 2022.
Three weeks after a stated decriminalization of slander in Armenia,
law-enforcement authorities are continuing to formally prosecute individuals
accused of insulting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian or other senior officials.
Government-backed amendments to the Armenian Criminal Code enacted last summer
made “grave insults” directed at state officials and public figures an offense
punishable with hefty fines or prison sentences of up to three months.
More than 50 Armenians have been charged with defamation and hundreds of others
investigated on the same grounds since the amendments took effect in September.
Many of those criminal cases stem from offensive comments on Pashinian made on
social media or in public speeches.
Pashinian’s political allies dismissed until recently calls for a repeal of the
legislation voiced by local and Western human rights groups such as Freedom
House and Amnesty International. Justice Minister Karen Andreasian unexpectedly
announced last month that the punitive measure has been excluded from a new
Criminal Code that came into force on July 1.
The development meant that all criminal cases opened under the scrapped
amendments will have to be closed. This has clearly not been the case so far.
Artak Avetian, an Armenian software engineer based in Germany, arrived in
Armenia on vacation with his wife and two children last month. He was later
barred from flying back to Munich after discovering at Yerevan’s Zvartnots
airport that he was charged in March with offending Pashinian.
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian brandishes a hammer at an election
campaign rally in Sisian, June 15, 2021.
Avetian was detained at the airport before spending a night at a police station
in Yerevan. He was informed there that the accusation leveled against him stems
from a Facebook post in which he lambasted Pashinian for the fact that the post
of Armenia’s top general remains vacant following an apparent purge of the army
top brass. Avetian said a law-enforcement officer told him that only a
prosecutor overseeing the inquiry into the post can drop the charge.
“I don’t know what the prosecutors are saying now,” the 50-year-old told
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service over the weekend. “I don’t even know when the
investigator appealed to them.”
Avetian’s lawyer, Ruben Melikian, said he knows of several other persons who are
also continuing to face such criminal charges.
The Office of the Prosecutor-General could not be reached for comment on the
matter.
Artur Sakunts, a veteran human rights activist, denounced as illegal the
authorities’ failure to close all such cases. “We are dealing with failure to
comply with a legal requirement,” he said.
Sakunts reiterated his view that the Pashinian administration’s 2021 decision to
criminalize insults was politically motivated and unjustified.
Justice Minister Andreasian defended the decision on June 11, claiming that it
helped to “rein in the shameful and unacceptable behavior of certain groups and
individuals.”
Armenian opposition leaders maintain that it was aimed at silencing vocal
critics of the current government. They say that Pashinian himself has relied
heavily on slander and “hate speech” before and after coming to power in 2018.
All forms of slander and defamation had already been decriminalized in Armenia
in 2010.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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