Daniel Ioannisyan, Coordinator of the “Union of Informed Citizens” NGO does not consider the action against the principal of the Monte Melkonian school as a vendetta.
“I went to that school not because the principal of that school was one of the 114 principals, or that she was Serzh Sargsyan’s childhood friend, but because a child was beaten in that school, there were serious violations of the rights, the schoolchildren, parents and teachers made protest action. I just only reminded that she was one of those 114 principals. Not making vendetta, does not mean to forget everything.
It turned out that there were other types of corruption in that school: they regularly provided people with bonuses and premiums, who were returning those to the principal. This corruption scheme had long been known, but no one dared to voice about it. We succeeded to persuade some workers to talk about it, because corruption should be disclosed.
There is nothing about vendetta, we were very respectful with the principal, then I called everyone to leave because the investigative body needed to deal with that issue. When I was leaving, I met the head of the Investigation Division of Malatia-Sebastia district, who said that they would examine and give a legal assessment to the case”, said Daniel Ioannisyan.
In response to our question whether they are planning to conduct similar actions in the remaining 113 schools, the principals of which are Republicans and who have collected votes for the Republican Party in the elections, Daniel Ioannisyan said: “We did not start the action at this school: I was informed that there was an action there and I visited. If students, parents or instructors decide to voice about violations of their rights, naturally, civil society should stand by those people. But we have not initiated this action”.
In response to the question whether the “Reject Serzh” initiative was in the core of this action, our interlocutor said: “I do not think so. In any case, we have been able to detect corruption and managed to convince people to talk in front of cameras”.
Asked whether what has changed that teachers, pupils and their parents who have been silent for years have decided to raise their voices, demanding their principal’s resignation, our interlocutor said: “The society is changing, people have been tolerating fraudulent elections for 25 years, but at some point they ceased to tolerate and the society changed. I think this will not be the first case we will witness local manifestations of struggle against injustice, people will decide to oppose their mayors, etc.”.
Arpine SIMONYAN
