Yesterday two trials – on balloons and on Harsnakar – took place simultaneously and I am uneasy about both of them. Regarding the balloons, I am sorry for the poor man who has been convicted to one year in prison and who, as one can suggest from the trial, is the only person who bears responsibility for the injuries of 228 people. In regard to this case, the
leader of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) made the following comparison – if one sells a low-quality suit in a shop, who is responsible for that, you or the seller? The comparison seems inappropriate to me – if I buy a suit for myself, yes, it is a problem between me and the seller. If I buy a product for thousands of people, I must check the quality of that product and the level of its security. If I haven’t done that, I am, at least, the seller’s accomplice. And two questions arise here. Firstly, if the buyer knew that the product was dangerous (Serob Bozoyan says so) and he, nonetheless, bought it, he is guiltier than the negligent producer and the seller. Secondly, if he was given 100 rubles to buy that product and he bought a product worth 20 rubles, he is also a cheat. I don’t care a member of what party that buyer is, but since he is not in the dock, one can assume that this unknown person (persons, organization) is close to the government. The aggrieved persons are very passive, that is why it was easy to hush up the reality and to punish the whipping boy.
The fuss about the Harsnakar case is much more – there are social activists who follow all the developments regarding the trial. Despite that, there are no particular reasons for excitement here either. For example, the attorney assessed the motion of the aggrieved party’s counselor to find out whether those who had committed the crime were workers of Harsnakar or not as mere “curiosity.” So people go to a restaurant where they are beaten and murdered, but it is not important at all whether the murderers are workers of the restaurant or, say, customers. Such a way of conducting a trial makes me think that the criminals will save their neck with symbolic punishments and the case will not be solved completely.
As opposed to the social figures following that case, I don’t think that the court or the prosecutor or the judge is put under pressure. It seems to me that mental inertia applies here. It seems to those people that they may be put under pressure at a certain point in time and they prefer “to behave themselves” out of harm’s way thinking that they will suck up to the brass. Perhaps, one could explain to them that times have changed.
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ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
