Pashinyan’s government is holding several dozen political prisoners, carrying out direct attacks on free speech, violently obstructing the conduct of church rituals, and arrogating to itself the right to decide who should be Catholicos, bishop, or priest.
And a representative of that very government—the Foreign Minister—goes to the PACE and complains about “enemies of freedom,” with a transparent hint that the entire opposition is pro-Russian and that Russia is the main enemy of Armenia’s freedom. In doing so, he pours oil on European hearts, while at the same time avoiding naming Russia outright—a bit of rustic “shrewdness.” As if Armenia is now a democracy, and the opposition merely wants to drag the country back into authoritarianism.
But the opposition’s “anti-state activity” does not end there. They also want to use democratic mechanisms to come to power—that is, they are preparing to take part in parliamentary elections. How dare they? Elections, of course, should be contested exclusively by the authorities’ satellites and puppets, whom Pashinyan himself will designate as the “opposition.” For that, it is not enough to keep real opposition figures in prison; perhaps genuine opposition parties and alliances should not even be registered, so they cannot participate in the elections at all. Naturally, all of this to the applause of European institutions.
The whole problem is that those institutions—including the Council of Europe—are utterly indifferent to who the enemies of freedom are and who its friends are. What interests them is whether Armenia’s rulers and pro-government circles, at least at the level of rhetoric, say something negative about Russia or not. If they do, that alone is sufficient to proclaim them “friends of freedom.”
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Even if Pashinyan were to imprison not just hundreds but execute a thousand people, the “Euro-Alfalfas” (a sarcastic label invented by Nikol Pashinyan, when he was a journalist, for European officials who turn a blind eye to injustices in Armenia)”would still regard him as the greatest democrat on earth.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
