On October 17, the Court of First Instance announced the verdict of Shant Harutyunyan and his friends being accused in hooliganism. Accordingly, they were sentenced to 1-7 years in prison, while Shant’s underage son, Shahen, was sentenced to 4 years suspended sentence.
According to “Heritage” party MP, Zaruhi Postanjyan, the main goal of the verdicts made against Shant and his friends is “to remind the freedom-loving citizens that the regime will unmercifully pursue all the riots, even the underage.” Ms. Postanjyan reminded, “A regime representative has said that “he will choke the revolution in the cradle,” the issuance of this sentence is in this logic.”
This sentence for the civic activist, also member of “Army in Reality” initiative, Zaruhi Hovhannisyan, especially with regard to the 15-year-old Shahen, first and foremost, was a “simple revenge”. “Shahen has taken his grandfather’s name, who had been one of the leaders of dissident fight, then Shant continued his deeds, and now he is training his son for this fight. Unfortunately, being independent for 25 years, we returned to the same point, the dissident fight, and it is not just tried to be prevented, but restrained by all means and punished. Surely, they will demonstrate the punishment so that others would not try to fight for freedom and independence of Armenia. Although, such actions cannot be effective, the fighting groups will continue their activities in different ways,” said Zaruhi Hovhannisyan.
Melania BARSEGHYAN
