15:50,
YEREVAN, JULY 27, ARMENPRESS. Mikayel Zalinyan has been appointed secretary general of the Civil Aviation Committee.
The respective decision has been signed by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and is posted on e-gov.am.
Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
15:52,
YEREVAN, JULY 10, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian arrived in the Republic of Artsakh on a working visit on July 10, the Armenian President’s Office told Armenpress.
President Sarkissian met with President of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunyan in Stepanakert.
President Sarkissian once again congratulated and wished success to Arayik Harutyunyan, expressing confidence that he will successfully continue serving the homeland with his experience and knowledge. “I also want to congratulate the entire people of Artsakh because the presidential and parliamentary elections were held in a democratic way”, Armen Sarkissian said. “Please convey my congratulations also to the other participants of the presidential election, who didn’t win personally, but won together, showing to the world that Artsakh is not only a firm, strong, but also is a democratic country, as well as a free country where free elections are being held. They should be proud of as they had their contribution to this process. I want to first of all wish you and all citizens of Artsakh good health. I am confident that we will overcome this difficult situation and will move on, strengthening both Armenia and Artsakh”.
In his turn the President of Artsakh thanked for these words and stated that most of the candidates who participated in the presidential election are part of the current political leadership, adding that he is ready to ensure the country’s progress and development, and those, who are not involved, also continue their activity for the sake of Artsakh. Arayik Harutyunyan thanked Armenia’s authorities for assisting the practical programs aimed at the development of Artsakh. “I want to note that together we will manage not only to overcome the current situation, but also ensure progress in the development of our homeland”, he said.
The meeting also touched upon a number of ongoing and prospective programs directed for the strengthening and development of Artsakh.
Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
The Armenian Football Federation (FFA) suspended the country’s second tier with immediate effect and disqualified five teams after receiving ‘undeniable evidence’ of their involvement in match-fixing.
About 45 people, including club owners, players and coaches, have been handed with life bans and another 13 were banned for different periods for being involved in manipulation of matches, the FFA said.
Local media reported that club owners with Russian passports, Russian players and coaches, as well as Ukrainian, Latvian and Belarusian footballers were among those banned.
Lokomotiv Yerevan, level on points with second division leaders FC Van, Aragats, Torpedo Yerevan and Masis were disqualified from the championship following suspicious results, including 12-0, 0-12, 1-8, 9-2, 0-7, 0-8 and 8-2.
FC Yerevan, who had withdrawn from the 2019-20 Premier League in February due to financial and technical problems, were also disqualified for match-fixing.
‘The decisions were made after the FFA received undeniable evidence from international organizations and law enforcement agencies,’ FFA President Armen Melikbekyan said in a statement.
‘The evidence that we received from our international colleagues will be transferred to the Armenian law enforcement agencies.’
Melikbekyan promised transparent FFA leadership after his election victory in December.
There have been media reports of widespread match-fixing and corruption in the South Caucasus country for years.
‘Our goal is to eradicate corruption and the system of fixed games in the Armenian football,’ Melikbekyan said.
‘This process, however, does not end. The Expert Group created by the FFA will continue to work to identify all possible adverse events.’
16:02, 1 July, 2020
YEREVAN, JULY 1, ARMENPRESS. Armenian kanoon player Marianna Gevorgyan won one of the three main prizes of the World Folk Vision contest, she said on Facebook.
“We recorded a victory at the World Folk Vision international contest-festival. An honorary Grand prize at the 1st place. Thanks to all”, she said.
Marianna Gevorgyan became the winner at the nomination “Music of the peoples of the world”.
The contest was held online. Representatives of 115 countries participated in the contest, but 180 participants from 60 countries qualified for semi-final.
Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
UCI Center for Armenian Studies
The Center for Armenian Studies at the University of California, Irvine has been established. The new Center, based in the School of Humanities, will support teaching, research, and community engagement with an emphasis on the study of Armenians and Armenia within a regional (i.e., Middle East and Caucasus) and world context, thus reflecting the global and interactive nature of Armenian history.
With a strong programming history and demonstrated community support, the Center seeks to contribute to the diverse intellectual and cultural life of the campus and the wider community.
“This is a particularly propitious time for the creation of a Center in Armenian Studies. Since the launching of the Meghrouni Family Presidential Chair in Armenian Studies, UCI Armenian Studies has grown on campus to include the teaching of Armenian history courses, the creation of two years of Armenian-language instruction, an Armenian Studies Minor, and an expanded collection of Armenian-language and Armenian-related books,” said Professor Houri Berberian, the director of the Center for Armenian Studies and the holder of the Meghrouni Family Presidential Chair in Armenian Studies.
The program has also garnered recognition and visibility nationally and internationally in the Armenian Studies field through its programming and leadership. The Center for Armenian Studies will facilitate and solidify the work already taking place in Armenian Studies in the School of Humanities by bringing Armenian Studies to the university community as well as the broader community through its programming as well as undergraduate teaching and graduate training. The Center will further propel interdisciplinary research, teaching, and outreach toward the ambitious broader goal of establishing an endowed Center for Armenian Diaspora Studies.
“We look forward to welcoming you to our future programs for the UCI Center for Armenian Studies in the Fall,” said Berberian. “We are grateful for the generosity and support of our UCI Armenian Studies community.”
On Wednesday, June 24 UCI will host an online giving day that includes a UCI Armenian Studies campaign page.
Individuals interested in learning about how to support the UCI Center for Armenian Studies and the vital work of its faculty and student scholars, may contact Rakib Haque at [email protected] or at (949) 824-1349.
By Mark Dovich
On June 16, Armenia’s National Assembly voted 87-0 to strip lawmaker Gagik Tsarukyan of his parliamentary immunity and issue a permit for his arrest after Prosecutor General Artur Davtyan brought the issue before the legislature. Of the 87 members of the 132-seat parliament who took part in the ballot, all but one were members of the ruling My Step alliance. In contrast, representatives of the opposition parties Prosperous Armenia and Bright Armenia boycotted the vote. The National Assembly’s decision paves the way for Tsarukyan’s formal indictment and arrest on criminal charges recently brought against him by Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS).
The irony that Davtyan brought the issue of lifting Tsarukyan’s immunity before the legislature has not been lost on many observers, who recall that Davtyan himself, then as a lawmaker representing the Yelk alliance, put forward the issue of stripping Nikol Pashinyan, now Prime Minister, of his immunity in early 2018. Davtyan later withdrew that request.
Tsarukyan is one of Armenia’s richest men and the longtime leader of Prosperous Armenia, currently the largest opposition party in the National Assembly. Though Tsarukyan ran several small businesses in the 1980s and 1990s, he began to expand his business holdings considerably only after the 1998 presidential election, which brought Robert Kocharyan to power. A close friend and business partner of Kocharyan’s brother Valery, Tsarukyan was able to leverage his connections with the government to pick up major state contracts and acquire numerous state assets that were up for privatization. Today, Tsarukyan is especially well-known for his entrepreneurial activities in the construction sector and the hospitality industry, particularly hotels and casinos.
Following the National Assembly’s vote, Tsarukyan was taken in for questioning by the NSS, which later confirmed that it had submitted an arrest warrant for Tsarukyan to the Shengavit branch of the Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction. Meanwhile, Tsarukyan has repeatedly railed against what he has termed a politically-motivated “fabricated case.”
The decision to lift Tsarukyan’s immunity and issue a permit for his arrest follows a June 14 announcement by the NSS that the government had initiated three criminal cases against Tsarukyan on charges of “inflicting damage to property by deception or abuse of confidence” and conducting “illegal entrepreneurial activity.” The first criminal case alleges that Tsarukyan evaded more than $60 million in taxes on revenues earned from two large casinos he owns. The second case concerns Tsarukyan’s role in a purported vote-buying scheme organized by Prosperous Armenia in the region of Gegharkunik during the 2017 parliamentary elections. The third and final case implicates Tsarukyan in an illegal purchase of state land in his hometown of Arinj.
The same day, NSS officers raided Tsarukyan’s home outside of Yerevan and confiscated numerous documents. Following the search, Tsarukyan was taken to the NSS building and questioned for nearly nine hours, after which he was released. During that time, his supporters rallied in front of the NSS building, calling for Tsarukyan to be released and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to resign. By day’s end, more than 250 demonstrators had been detained, as the ongoing state of emergency over the coronavirus pandemic bans large gatherings.
Aside from the ongoing criminal cases initiated by the NSS, Tsarukyan has long been the subject of controversy over a 1979 decision by the Supreme Court of Soviet Armenia that found Tsarukyan and several other individuals guilty of sexual assault. In that case, Tsarukyan was sentenced to seven years in prison, though it remains unclear if Tsarukyan actually served that sentence. During Kocharyan’s presidency, the Armenian Court of Cassation overturned the 1979 verdict and acquitted Tsarukyan on the grounds that his “participation in the crimes committed had not been proven.”
The initiation of criminal cases against Tsarukyan now, the vote to strip him of his parliamentary immunity, and the issuance of arrest warrants for him all represent significant escalations in the growing tensions between the opposition leader and the current administration. In recent weeks, Tsarukyan has been increasingly vocal in his criticism of the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crisis caused by efforts to curb the disease’s spread, going so far as to call for Pashinyan’s government to resign, in a heated speech on June 5.
Even before the National Assembly’s vote to strip him of immunity and issue a permit for his arrest, Tsarukyan had repeatedly lashed out at the government over the initiation of criminal cases against him, claiming that the developments were politically motivated. In one particularly combative speech, Tsarukyan said of the allegations, “it’s an escalation, it’s political, they want to put pressure on me and blackmail me.”
Several observers have expressed similar concerns, suggesting that the timeline of events—the opening of criminal cases against Tsarukyan following his speaking out against the government—supports a political motive. For instance, Armen Vardanyan, an analyst at the Armenian Institute of International Affairs and Security, pointed out in an interview with the Caucasian Knot that “when criminal cases are opened after calling for the government to resign, this speaks of a political motive.” Other observers who spoke with Caucasian Knot, including Naira Hayrumyan, an editor at the Armenian news site Lragir.am, and Boris Navasardyan, the head of the Yerevan Press Club, echoed Vardanyan’s thoughts.
It is a striking turn of events for Tsarukyan, one of several oligarchs in Armenia to have successfully navigated the country’s post-Velvet Revolution political scene—at least until recently. Despite his position as the leader of the largest opposition party in the National Assembly, Tsarukyan had long been on fairly good terms with Pashinyan personally. In 2018, Tsarukyan supported many of the demands put forward by protesters during the Velvet Revolution and even played a key role in pushing for the early parliamentary elections later that year that brought Pashinyan to power.
Pashinyan, on June 16, commented publicly for the first time on the recent developments surrounding Tsarukyan, writing on his official Facebook page that, “all cases of obstructing the free will of the people…should be considered in accordance with the procedure established by the legislation of Armenia…There is no alternative to freedom, democracy, and the rule of law in Armenia. Everyone is equal before the law.”
Speculation is now swirling that the NSS may soon initiate a criminal case against Naira Zohrabyan, the General Secretary of Prosperous Armenia, for her alleged role in the aforementioned vote-buying scheme. Zohrabyan herself has confirmed she received notification that a search had been conducted in her office.
In an interview with Kommersant, Alexander Iskandaryan, the director of the Yerevan-based Caucasus Institute, described the decision to lift Tsarukyan’s immunity and issue a permit for his arrest as a “continuation of the replacement of the elite” that began in Armenia following the Velvet Revolution. Speculating on the country’s political future, Iskandaryan suggested that “the next stage will be the emergence of opposition figures from within the new elite,” that is, from within Pashinyan’s circle.
16:50, 8 June, 2020
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. Deputy head of the Nature Protection and Subsoil Inspectorate Marat Badalyan has been dismissed.
The respective decision has been signed by Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan.
Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
ArmInfo.Two people were detained on suspicion of hooliganism at the Meimandar market in the Armavir region of the Republic of Armenia.
According to the Investigative Committee, on June 2 at 3:20 pm an a citizen of Armavir region alarmed that on the same day, at about 1:00 pm, in front of the entrance to the Maimandar market in the village of Gai, a group of people overturned his parked car, causing significant damage. According to preliminary data, a group of people, showing disrespect, deliberately grossly violated public order and overturned a <VAZ> car belonging to a resident of Armavir region.
On this fact, a criminal case was initiated in the Vagharshapat police department of the Republic of Armenia under clause 1 of part 3 of article 258 (hooliganism) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia. Residents of the Ararat region born in 1987 and 1980, were detained on suspicion of committing hooliganism as part of a group. The investigation continues.
To recall, yesterday's protest rally was attended by traders dissatisfied with the decision of the Commandant's Office to close the market for 24 hours in connection with violations of the anti-epidemiological rules. This ban on economic activity was supposed to enter into force on the morning of June 2, but the protesters getting into a beef with law enforcement officers. As a result, chief of the police of the Armavir region Aram Hovhannisyan addressed to the protesters, stating that, taking into account the opinions voiced, the responsible authorities are ready to make some concessions and allow the market to work during the day, however, in the morning of June 3, the market will be closed for 24 hours, and the territory will be disinfected.