Vahan Khachatryan, the owner of the GALA TV company and the chairman of the Civilitas Foundation council, who was summoned to the National Security Service for an interview regarding the Vartan Oskanian case yesterday thinks this way. Mr. Khachatryan said during a conversation with www.aravot.am, “The investigator interviewing me in the National Security Service called himself a KGB officer, this is the second time he describes himself with that term, I heard the same thing a few months ago when I was summoned for an interview for the first time. I explained to him that he was not a KGB officer, he was an officer of the National Security Service of Armenia and there was the coat of arms of the Republic of Armenia over his head. I briefly explained why the KGB was different, I said that it was a very bad institution, but, unfortunately, a few months later, during yesterday’s interview, that captain repeated the same thing, perhaps, he didn’t understand the difference and he introduces himself as a KGB officer again. He considers himself as such and this means that it is pointless to talk about this institution any longer, can you imagine at what level all that is and against whom people of that level make up cases? The Soviet KGB is attached to and identified with the name of Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, he is the founder of the KGB, he established that order, the KGB was an institution for repressing and abusing people. And I don’t want to have a KGB in my Armenia, we struggle against that, in order that there is no KGB here, but there is the National Security Service of the Republic of Armenia. I pay high taxes, in order that this officer is paid a good salary and he doesn’t speak of himself as a KGB officer. Unfortunately, I felt really bad and I have been in a minor stress up until now because of that revelation I made yesterday. It was my only impression of the whole interview, no other episode engraved in my memory.” In response to our question whether he saw any similarities between the Vartan Oskanian case and the case against the GALA TV company made up before the previous presidential election, Vahan Khachatryan said, “Of course, I see. I am under the impression that we have seen all this, I even know what will be after which step, as Ulyanov Lenin knew how they would carry out the revolution, this is like that, all this has become classic, one can even write a book about what the government can do after which step. I am very sorry about this that we haven’t managed to form a culture during the past 20 years, in which criminal prosecution for political views is ruled out. This must be eradicated; everyone must bear responsibility for his actions. Tomorrow when Serzh Sargsyan is persecuted for his political views, if he has such, we, the whole society, must stand by him, in order that he is not accused groundlessly.” As for what will come out of the charges brought against Oskanian, according to Vahan Khachatryan, since it is a political case, the outcome will depend on the rearrangements before the presidential election. “The damage to the reputation of Armenia on the international arena is an irreversible loss for me, they don’t treat us seriously – they make up a case against a person who represented our country before that same international community for 10 years and everyone realizes that this is made up, this is like a white sheet of paper, on which nothing is written, because everything is clear to everyone. I don’t want the US Ambassador to make a statement, which is like wagging a finger, I don’t want to live in а country, where one rebukes at the ambassadorial level, I want to live in a serious country, this is my concern,” the owner of GALA says.
