“Two types of assessment can be given to the incident: political and legal”, – so answered Director of “Collaboration for Democracy” center Stepan Danielyan to the question of Aravot.am as to what assessment can be given to the incident happened yesterday at the Freedom Square. He noted that it need time to provide legal assessment and detailed, “We have to understand what really happened. Watching the video, it leaves the impression that there were provocateurs among the rally participants, and participants were resisting people in civilian clothes, who were also with sticks. As I understand, the sticks were having a symbolic role and were elements of a carnival. We need to study the videos who first began using explosives.” Mr. Danielyan said, “It seems the conflict began when the participants tried to cross the street, but we all understand that the process of criminal cases will depend on the political decision of the ruling gang, and the political decision will depend on the internal and external factors. Anonymous Day was celebrated all over the world, but it came into collision only in Armenia. Everywhere there were more serious consequences of mass protests, but no one is charged for 5-10 years. If it stays like that, Armenia’s political rating will further go down.” Stepan Danielyan also highlights the political reasons and notes, “Not finding the solution to his problems and mechanisms to influence public policy, Harutyunyan is becoming more and more radical. What was the essence of Shant’s step? I think it should be clear to everyone that not the authorities but the public was the recipient of Shant’s step, and by saying a revolution, he meant the value revolution. Making a radical step, he wanted to change the public perceptions. I think this step made an impact on some people. We should also take into account that such incidents within the government can be also used against each other.” To our next question whether you see similarity between what happened yesterday and the March 1 events, Mr. Danielyan said that he does not see resemblance and added, “The first difference is that there were no partied on the platform. Secondly, the recipient of the actions was the community, and not the government.” We were interested whether there will be some steps in defense of Shant Harutyunyan, our interlocutor said, “It is very difficult to answer your question. Shant has raised a public issue and his protection is first of all up to the community. If a certain part of the community defends him, then we can say that Shant went for this desperate step not in vain and reached his goal. If a person goes out to fight with political slogans, the solution must also be political.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
