Publicist Zaruhi Hovhannisyan, a member of We Demand to Punish All Those Who Are Guilty of the Incident That Took Place at Harsnakar civic initiative, was surprised at the doubts of Mikayel Danielyan, the head of the Helsinki Association human right organization, about the appropriateness of the civic initiatives’ demands. Let us remind that M. Danielyan said in an interview given to www.epress.am that there were many strange things in social activity and those movements were not trustworthy, “Gagik Tsarukyan, the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) leader manages the National Olympic Committee of Armenia in the same manner. So what? Haven’t his bodyguards beaten people up? Or Serzh Sargsyan manages the Chess Federation, doesn’t he? And haven’t his bodyguards or law-enforcement bodies killed people? They have killed, they kill and they will kill. Why don’t they touch the Olympic Committee? Or are there Olympic champions and Tsarukyan can smash the initiative to pieces, is that it?”
In response to Mr. Danielyan’s opinion, Z. Hovhannisyan said during a conversation with www.aravot.am, “Activism develops, when human activities and different rights are massively restrained. In our country, courts don’t carry out their functions, therefore, the whole society expresses its discontent in such a style. Ruben Hayrapetyan, in particular, is a statesman, a member of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), everybody knows about his activities, his propaganda of violence can always be noticed on TV and in public places. If the society has started a civic movement against such a way of life, I don’t think that it is worth criticizing and any human rights advocate should welcome such a move.”
She ruled out the opinion of Mr. Danielyan and people thinking like him that civic initiatives were directed by political forces, “This is an organized action… the people are deprived of the possibility to form a government through elections – it can be done only through social movements and forming opinions these days. One should create a situation, by which the atmosphere of permissiveness will be overcome.”
Arpine SIMONYAN
