What Prevented Armenia’s Opposition from Considering Sargsyan’s Speech as a Positive Omen?

“If I was in Serzh Sargsyan’s place, I too would be ashamed,” said Armenian National Congress (HAK) coordinator Levon Zurabyan, speaking to journalists in Yerevan today and referring to the Armenian president’s speech at yesterday’s police board meeting. Recall, Sargsyan, speaking about police abusing their authority, said, “I myself am ashamed for you. If you are serious about the system, of which I am certain, you consider the honor of the system, your honor, you yourselves have to feel personally insulted and you had to be the first to come and tell that high-ranking officer, ‘ay, you immoral, why are you disgracing our system?'”

“It was clear from the context of his speech that he was talking about [Hovhannes] Tamamyan [who on Feb. 26 was released from his position as head of the police criminal investigations department but is still on the police payroll] who fixed a case and people not connected [to the case] were charged. For such crimes there’s a clear law in the criminal code which defines the punishment. What does ‘kept on the payroll’ mean? Is that a new form of punishment in the criminal code? That means that criminals are kept in the police reserves?” asked Zurabyan.

Zurabyan notes that the opposition would be inclined to consider Serzh Sargsyan’s speech as a positive omen, “since there were remarks there which showed that the authorities have passed from the reaction I’ve characterized as boyish to another form.”

“We would’ve considered this positive if it wasn’t for the Samson Khachatryan incident [a HAK activist arrested on Sunday]. And generally we’re going to believe and reconcile with only the case. We can herald it only as an omen,” he said.

The opposition spokesperson also touched upon Sargsyan’s speech in Dzaghkadzor on Saturday, in which the Armenian president had said, “we should infer conclusions of past mistakes, so we don’t repeat them.”

“I think that unlawful activities shouldn’t be repeated. Everyone can make mistakes. It’s possible that we too have allowed mistakes, but we’ve never applied violence, iniquity or unconstitutional actions. I suggest we talk not about not repeating mistakes, but about not repeating unconstitutional actions,” he said.