Hrant Bagratyan advised residents of Martuni during a rally of the Armenian National Congress (ANC), “When Serzh comes, take your shoe off and throw it at him, they did the same to Bush.” Levon Ter-Petrossian called the government “stupid,” saying that they had been stupid already, going to restaurants and not sleeping they became more stupid. These people devour, they are thieves and bandits etc. In this regard, during a conversation with www.aravot.am, Karen Andreasyan, the Human Rights Defender, responding to our question whether the discretion of the opposition that had been assessing and labeling the government quite severely wasn’t to be limited, whether everything was acceptable during election campaign, said, “Election campaign has its rules. I myself, as a human being, am against every kind of extreme labeling and politically incorrect expressions. However, at the end of the day, they should be very tolerant to every idea and every thought expressed during the election campaign, because I think it is acceptable and according to the logic of the freedom of speech, if it is within the limits of the freedom of speech that doesn’t instigate people to disrupt the constitutional order, doesn’t instigate to crime, hatred, unlawful actions and violence. Election campaign has clear rules stipulated by the Electoral Code and I don’t think that severe labeling is banned in them.” We tried to get a clarification whether one couldn’t say that they aroused hatred among people, when they said, “Serzh Sargsyan is a murderer,” the Ombudsman responded that “if there was an instigation to kill or stone someone who is not good, one should use violence against him and those are really instigating words, the European Court itself says that if one instigates in the way that really threatens others, only then it can be limited. At the same time, if someone libels or offends anyone, it is good that the current Civil Code offers an opportunity to protect the one libeled and offended, but only according to the logic of not demanding large sums.”
This year, Karen Andreasyan, considering all the alerts that are there and the publications in the press, expects a better election, nonetheless, “We see progress in certain fields. We see decrease in violations. I don’t say that we expect a perfect election, but probably better than the previous ones. At the same time, one is afraid to make such an assessment, because there can be a surprise at any moment. The whole voting process may be normal and at the end there is an unpleasant surprise that spoils the whole picture. However, the process raises hopes.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
