Student Council Ordered Students to Participate in Protest Against Local Daily?

Participating in the protest organized by the political party Prosperous Armenia in front of the editorial offices of local daily Haykakan Jamanak (“Armenian Times”) yesterday were students from the Yerevan State Engineering University (YSEU) and the Gyumri State Pedagogical Institute (GSPI), though the Oct. 27 issue of the paper had run a story in which it said that students from the Vanadzor State Pedagogical Institute (VSPI) were offered 5,000 AMD (about $14 USD) each to participate in an Oct. 30 Prosperous Armenia event in the city of Spitak in Armenia’s Lori region.  

A Haykakan Jamanak journalist approached one youth who said he is a student at YSEU and asked, if he is not a VSPI student, how does he know that money was not offered to those students, to which the student responded, “I don’t know,” then added, “The Student Council said we had to come, [so] we came.” 

According to the daily, readers of their paper who saw the protest on TV said that among demonstrators they noticed Gor Vardanyan’s “boys.” Gor Vardanyan is a well-known Armenian filmmaker who shoots action films and runs a martial arts school: the “boys” in question are those who study karate with him.