At the beginning of July, it became clear that members of the Resistance movement were sent notices to participate in three-month gatherings. The quarterly gatherings and the sending of notices, especially in post-war Armenia, would not be unusual if it were not for the events that preceded this information. Andranik Kocharyan, the pro-government deputy and chairman of the National Defense and Security Affairs Standing Committee, spoke about taking the members of the “Resistance” movement to three-month gatherings during the days of the movement’s street struggle.
Andranik Kocharyan called on the law enforcement agencies to collect the data of the mentioned citizens and transfer it to the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia. The Ministry of Defense probably did not listen to Andranik Kocharyan’s call. More than 100 invitations to participate in the three-month gatherings were sent to the opposition youths who demonstrated active behavior and criticized the authorities most harshly. There would probably be no reason for such an assumption, if notices with ridiculous incidents had not been sent to the opposition youth.
For example, from August 1, Taron, son of ARF member Gegham Manukyan, MP of the Armenia faction, received a notice to participate in the three-month gatherings. He is one of the five young men who are in custody, so to speak, in the “Gyumri case”, when a dispute and a fight took place between members of the “Resistance” movement and elderly men from Gyumri, during the movement’s visit to Gyumri. Although the elderly men from Gyumri declared in the court that they had no complaint, the court did not change the restraining order of the detained persons. In a conversation with Aravot.am, Gegham Manukyan said that no other developments have taken place after receiving the summons. They did not receive a response from the military commissariat even after they publicly announced Taron’s detention.
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What will be the end of this story, our interlocutor finds it difficult to guess. By the way, the quarterly gatherings start on August 1. In another case, the summons was sent in flagrant violation of the law; a 12-month period is set for conscripting a soldier who has completed his service, that is, they do not have the right to conscript for 12 months, however, a young man from the ARF was conscripted before that period expired. The most ironic thing is that he was drafted as a private, but during the 44-day war he was in the service, served in the famous “Yeghnikner” as a doctor and has the rank of senior lieutenant. Later, at the military commissariat, someone must have realized that eventually a liability issue could arise and canceled this summons. The ARF does not want to mention the name of the hero of this story. In the member parties of the “Resistance” movement, however, a pattern was noticed when they studied the lists of conscripted youth; they are mainly the young people detained during the movement’s demonstrations. It was noteworthy that these days, various social and political activists, who also received notices, made statements.
For example, on July 27, Argishti Kiviryan made a similar post. “About a month ago, I received a notice about leaving for a three-month training camp from August 1, 2022. Moreover, I received the relevant notice a few days after I publicly announced that I was going to hold a permanent live on social networks in connection with the most relevant political events from July 1, and we also organized a meaningful public political discussion during those days. Moreover, some time after I presented myself at the military commissariat, I was informed by my relevant sources that the National Security Service was called in to “find” me, you don’t know why, in the event that every second person in this city knows about my location, and I was the first from the military commissariat. After the verbal call, I went and took the relevant summons with my own hand… Anyway, I perfectly understand that calling me to the three-month training sessions has nothing to do with increasing the defense of the Republic of Armenia, and is directly related to my socio-political activities against these authorities, and in popular terms, it is an ordinary attempt at reprisal.”
Days later, he announced that he had passed a military medical examination and was released from the three-month gathering. A few days ago, Hovhannes Ishkhanyan announced that he refused to participate in the three-month meeting, writing: “At the end of June, when I was in Artsakh, they brought a notice to participate in the so-called three-month gatherings to our house, so that we could defend Berdzor with our presence. I served in the Armed Forces of Armenia from 2006-2008. Then, as a reservist, I participated in all the gatherings that were called. In 2020, I was summoned to participate in the war, which later turned out to be terrorism against the Armenian people and treason.”
In a conversation with Aravot.am, referring to this topic, human rights defender Zaruhi Hovhannisyan said: “The army should be apolitical and should not be a participant in political processes in any way, should not be a club for political opponents and should not be involved in similar problems in any way.”
A similar position was expressed earlier by Taguhi Tovmasyan, the chairman of the NA Human Rights Protection and Public Affairs Committee.
Nelly GRIGORYAN
