In blogger Tigran Kocharyan’s (Elephant) opinion, the decision made by the trial court of the Kentron and Nork Marash administrative districts yesterday to condemn the ANC activists to 2-6 years in prison is not political persecution against the ANC. Let us remind that Aram Manukyan, a National Assembly ANC MP, qualified this decision as political persecution against the opposition. “The ANC always qualifies everything as political persecution, I don’t
agree that they persecute, moreover, in my opinion, this decision is in the ANC interest to some extent, since it has an opportunity to prevent people from fleeing the ANC and to unite the rest for the sake of a struggle to free the youths,” T. Kocharyan said during a conversation with www.aravot.am. According to him, the term for Tigran Arakelyan – 6 years in prison – was too long and the imprisonment of the rest was inadequate, “The rest should have been acquitted in the courtroom, fine would suffice. I think that the court of appeals will make the punishment milder, the legislation should be revised and the amount of fine should be increased. The most correctional method in our country is to hit one’s pocket.”
We inquired of Mr. Kocharyan what response the court decision on the activists would receive in the international reports regarding Armenia, “It depends on whether international organizations will want to use it as an additional tool for pressure or not. In any case, hitting a police officer is a criminal action, it would just be better, if such or more serious crimes committed by some bodyguards, people close to oligarchs and others were punished as strictly, regardless of whether they are representatives of the government or the opposition.”
Arpine SIMONYAN
