The Prosecutor’s Office did not initiate criminal proceedings regarding the obvious threats made by Artur Hovhannisyan, the secretary of the NA CC faction, to the candidate for Human Rights Defender, Edgar Ghazaryan. “This is hate speech, a call to violence, an impermissible act,” said Ara Gharagyozyan, the guest of Aravot’s “Areresum” (“Confrontation”) program, about Arthur Hovhannisyan’s “tongue cutting” and other threats. “I think that Alen Simonyan’s famous act (spitting on a citizen in response to chanting “traitor” – ed.), Artur Hovhannisyan’s action, you also remember: they were hitting each other with bottles in the National Assembly, and the official deputies played an active role; and the prosecutor general… (I don’t even want to talk about the former Prosecutor General), the current Prosecutor General shows blatant inaction toward all this. Why can justice be selective?
And in this context, he mentioned that the National Assembly approved the petition of RA Prosecutor General Anna Vardapetyan to approve the initiation of public criminal prosecution against “Hayastan” faction MP Mher Sahakyan. “And why selectively, dear Prosecutor General, if you are fighting against crime, you are fighting against hate speech, you are fighting against violence, then you have to fight under conditions of a similar approach. Why didn’t you go to the National Assembly with a petition against those people and didn’t try to deprive them of their immunity?”
That question was addressed to the Prosecutor General during the discussion in the National Assembly, and she answered that there are relevant applications of the Association of Informed Citizens, which are being investigated. However, Daniel Ioannisyan, Union of Informed Citizens NGO programs coordinator, earlier described the failure to initiate criminal proceedings after the incident involving the Speaker of the National Assembly as “illegal inaction.”
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On April 3, the organization he led submitted a report on the crime to the Prosecutor General, expecting that a case of hooliganism would be started with the issue of spitting in the face of a citizen and the apparent abuse of authority by an official. But in this case, proceedings have yet to be initiated. Only four days after the incident, the National Assembly President apologized to Armenia’s citizens. “And was that an apology?” asked Zaruhi Hovhannisyan, Head of the Group of Public Monitors Implementing Supervision over the Criminal-Executive Institutions and Bodies of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia and Public Relations Officer of the “Women’s Support Center,” who, during the program called not to quote Alen Simonyan at all; “every citizen will act like that, but I am an official, maybe I should have restrained myself. Is that an apology; is that a form of apology?” More precisely, Alen Simonyan wrote on his Facebook page: “I’m sorry that I was thrown off course by the personal insult directed at me. I am sure any Armenian person with dignity would not tolerate such an insult, but the high responsibility placed on an elected official should have a deterrent role.
“First, you can’t just apologize there,” continued Zaruhi Hovhannisyan. “Can anyone commit a punishable act, ask for forgiveness and go home?” Sorry, it’s not like that. There should have been a clear legal consequence and a political result that the political force could demonstrate such behavior that every state citizen could imitate. During the conversation, it was also touched on the fact that Anahit Manasyan, who was still a candidate for Human Rights Defender, refused to evaluate the actions of Alen Simonyan and Artur Hovhannisyan, insisting that HRD should not focus on individuals but on phenomena. (“It is a phenomenon of hate speech; let it be addressed,” suggested Zaruhi Hovhannisyan).
And even after being elected as HRD, Anahit Manasyan repeated the earlier statement. “I don’t consider making critical statements to be the only tool I can use in my position as a human rights defender,” and the intention became a topic of discussion.
The entire conversation is in the video
Anna ISRAYELYAN
