Opposition supporters call for sitting protests
The leader of Armenia’s largest opposition group Armenian National Congress Levon Ter-Petrossian announced the start of one-week long non-stop rallies today, in a long awaited decisive move, following days of speculation as to what exactly the opposition will do when they see that the authorities have no intention of returning to dialogue. Continue reading
Tagged Armenia, Armenian National Congress, HAK, Levon Ter-Petrossian, Politics, Protests, Rally, sitting, tents, Yerevan
Opposition rally in the Freedom Square © Photo by Artur Papyan, Yerevan, 21Feb2008
As protests continue in Egypt, there has been much speculation that similar developments could occur in the former Soviet Union.
STRATFOR, a reputable geopolitical analytical think-tank, says this is unlikely, as there are too many differences — both cultural and political — between Egypt and the former Soviet states. However, factors unrelated to the Egypt unrest have created risks for instability in several other former Soviet countries. Continue reading
Tagged Armenia, Egypt, Freedom square, Government, Levon Ter-Petrossian, Opposition, Politics, Protests, Yerevan
Opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian and a group of his supporters released from jail pose for a photograph on 22 June, 2009 | Photolur photo, via RFE/RL
Two members of parliament, a former foreign minister, a former deputy to Prosecutor-General among 19 or so other oppositionists, walked out of courts and were released from prison in a matter of 2 days as an amnesty put forward by President Sarkisian and approved by the National Assembly last Friday came into action. Continue reading
Municipal authorities in Yerevan have banned a rally which the Armenian opposition plans to hold in the city center on the first anniversary of the March 1 deadly clashes sparked by the 2008 presidential election, RFE/RL reports.
The authorities have proposed the opposition to hold the near Yerevan’s “Dynamo” stadium, just outside the city center.
Artak Zeynalyan of “Hanrapetutyun” party had presented a formal notification to the municipality on February 9th about their intention to hold a rally in the area next to Yerevan’s manuscript museum – Matenadaran or the Northern Avenue, to be followed by a march to Myasnikyan statue - the location of March 1 violent clashes between opposition supporters and the police. Continue reading
Today a protest action was held before the Georgian Embassy: the 10 – 15 participants of the action solemnly buried Georgian democracy in response to Georgian attempts to scrap signs of Armenian heritage from the Armenian St. Norashen Church in Tbilisi.
The action was organized and staged by Armenian bloggers.
“Georgia has always been a friendly country to Armenia. However, the experience of the past five years showed but one thing: that country has been moving towards fascism. We do not care for the reasons being mere complexes or the bitterness of the defeat. We care for only one thing: crimes, cases of obvious hooliganism, are being committed, graves are being dug, historical monuments are being razed to the ground”, – the bloggers told Echannel at the event.
The action was staged in protest of the continuous efforts by Georgian priests to “georganize” Armenian churches in the territory of that country. The recent incident, which stirred bloggers’ discontent was related to the attempt by Georgian priest Tariel Sikinchelashvili to demolish the graves of Armenian Tamamshyan family placed in the backyard of St. Norashen church in the centre of Tbilisi.
The participants of the action also presented the Embassy with Armenian wine that bore the label Norashen. The Georgian ending ‘i’ was added to it.
It has become obvious that the protesters of Northern Avenue can’t avoid incidents, that pursue an aim to restrict their constitutional right to freely express their opinion. People taken to the police station have become a usual thing, but no one expected the Police to see danger also in the posters fixed on the walls of the buildings.
On August 25, as people of Northern Avenue said at about 10:30 about 20 policemen intruded and started tearing the posters. There were very few people there at that time. Probably it was a planned operation, as the Police had chosen the time when most of the go home or to their workplaces. On hearing this news lots of people hurried to the Northern Avenue after the incident. Some of them said that the reason of this operation were recently added big posters (including the big poster of Robert Kocharyan).
We cannot surely justify the Police operation, as the poster is another way of expressing an opinion and as it’s written in article 27 of the Constitution “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression including freedom to search for, receive and impart information and ideas by any means of information regardless of the state frontiers”.
Tagged Armenia, Democracy, Freedom of Expression, Opposition, Police, Protests
The big news at the start of the week was ex-president Robert Kocharyan’s interview given to Mediamax News Agency in response to ex-president Levon Ter-Petrossian’s speech on May 1st. Quite expectedly, Kocharyan talked complete crap, noting, that as he is not Armenia’s President anymore, he will be more unrestrained in his speech – not that he was ever restrained or anything.
Basically, while the great, educated egotist Ter-Petrossian was analyzing the situation in Armenia in nicely formulated sentences and trying to establish grounds for dialogue with current president of Armenia – Serzh Sargsyan, by laying most of the blame on Kocharyan, the Second president of Armenia chose to respond in the manner typical for his semi-educated egotistic self, calling the First president names, like “dumb” (տկարամիտ) and “deeply indecent” (խորապես անպարկեշտ), and saying, that it was the opposition who needed the blood and deaths on March 1st. [text here was edited, as the original post contained obviously biased points of views] Now, while I clearly recall at least one case, when Levon Ter-Petrossian spoke on the rallies, saying, that they will go till the end, that doesn’t mean, that human casualties can be blamed on the opposition. Moreover, in the situation, when the country disparately needs peace and reconciliation, and when the opposition has just attempted the first vague steps towards dialogue, Kocharyan’s words are rather unwelcome.
A1plus have started posting comprehensive video news digests from the developments in the regions of Armenia on their YouTube Channel. Below is the 9 minute piece for last week. Very interesting news, and certainly a welcome initiative.
About 150 women had gathered in front of the general prosecutor’s office to demand fair trial and freedom for political prisoners. They also conveyed a letter to the prosecutor’s office.
“Today, we have not come here to celebrate our feast but we have come here to demand freedom for our husbands and men. Since they are in prisons, we cannot celebrate it,” says Heghine Harutyunyan, a participant of the action. That was included in the letter signed by the gathered women and conveyed to the general prosecutor’s office of Republic of Armenia.
Continue reading
Posted in Armenia, Legal, Politics
Tagged Armenia, Demonstrations, Government, Opposition, Parties, Police, Politics, Protests, Rallies
E-channel has posted an analyses of March 1 events. There are a couple of key points in the analyses, which I want to draw your attention to:
The author of the analyses also suggests a very valid topic for discussion:
Tagged Armenia, Opposition, Police, Presidential Elctions, Protests, Security
