Aravot Daily asked the vice speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia, Alen Simonyan, about whether or not the leadership of the National Assembly has the authority to request that a deputy leave the parliament building for not wearing a mask. Ararat Mirzoyan had asked Edmon Marukyan to wear a mask, which Marukyan had labelled “illegal.”
Alen Simonyan responded, “The head of parliament needs to uphold the natural procedures in parliament. If such incidents take place in parliament due to the pandemic and someone says that they will not wear a mask, what does this mean? It comes to show that these individuals deliberately want to infect others. Perhaps it is not explicitly written in the parliamentary procedures that this is what can happen if people don’t wear masks, but the world is not familiar with COVID-19. This is the first time that something like this has happened; we’ve only seen something like this in films. And yes, the deputies in parliament need to be protected because we have deputies who are older in age who still come to sessions and we do not have the right to put them at risk.”
Upon the observation that Edmon Marukyan says that wearing masks is just acting because, when he would say that people should wear masks, no one would listen, but now everyone has started to wear masks, Alen Simonyan responded, “The issue of wearing masks changes across the world every day. The WHO has made contradicting statements regarding wearing masks and it has not yet been proven. However, all countries say that wearing masks prevents the spread of the virus by 90 percent. And if we have the chance to prevent it by 90 percent, then we need to take that step because we are dealing with human lives.”
Regarding whether or not this is acting, Alen Simonyan said, “If we are to speak about acting, then I lose to Edmon Marukyan.”
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Reporters spoke about the views of opposition members, especially Gevorg Petrosyan, that if wearing masks actually prevents the virus, why were the authorities partying in Artsakh without upholding social distancing? Alen Simonyan responded that there is a different legal system in Artsakh. Wearing masks is not mandatory there and they were outdoors, not indoors. They also were drinking wine and it is impossible to drink wine wearing a mask. “I don’t know if Gevorg Petrosyan can drink wine through a mask, but otherwise, it is physically impossible.”
In any case, Alen Simonyan accepted that this was a mistake because the authorities need to serve as an example to the public.
Hripsime Jebejyan
