There are speculations that Tsomak, the owner of the DIY club, has left Armenia. According to unconfirmed information, she is in Sweden. As for why she had left Armenia, activist Tsovinar Nazaryan said during a conversation with us that she didn’t want to say anything about Tsomak for personal reasons. “I have entered the DIY club many times myself and I have never been asked about my sexual orientation and no one has been. She was actively involved in environmental protests banging a drum, but she was not involved in either the pluralism march or anything else, let alone preaching homosexuality. Tsomak’s personality is more provocative, she was targeted, I haven’t gone into it; I would rather talk about tolerance and concord, tolerance toward a human being and humanity and intolerance toward inhumanity.”
In T. Nazaryan’s words, the attack of the youth on the pluralism parade, the DIY club, the “unconstitutional and illegal statements” made by state officials have made an impression on her that they themselves aimed at preaching homosexuality, “There are homosexuals in my environment, they have never impeded me and I have never impeded them. Armenians should eventually learn not to enter someone else’s personal area, shouldn’t they? Those people didn’t try to preach that or to preach that during conversations with me and those speculations were caused only by the attacks.” In response to a question whether, targeting Tsomak, there had been a goal to force her out, T. Nazaryan said that she noticed a policy pursued by the government to hit the society using the society, “The Armenian government forces almost all people to leave Armenia. The more active a person is, the more they would like him to leave… In case of homosexuals, a consolidation happened, they tried to make an impression that the society was divided, two parts of the society hit each other and the kind and reputed police appeared and rescued the participants in the pluralism parade, whereas it was obvious that the attackers were instigated and organized by circles close to the government. Now the government tries to hit the society using the society, it is the game that is played to make the active, disloyal part leave the country.”
We tried to talk to Violet Grigoryan about Tsomak’s departure. According to her, “I don’t discuss personalities, I don’t care for personalities, Tsomak’s life was her business, she could decide however she wanted, but the issue doesn’t disappear from the society because of that. However, you send your questions to me in writing, because I have been answering questions in writing on principle since long ago.”
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Arpine SIMONYAN
