Epress.am News from Armenia
Headmaster of the highschool after Hovhannes Tumanyan in village of Stepanavan in Armenia’s Lori region, Republican Party member Seda Tunyan several days ago beat her granddaughter in front of students in order to intimidate the others and prevent them from participating in opposition rallies, Epress.am was informed by parents of several students.
Tunyan’s granddaughter, along with her classmates, had the previous day taken part in a march against the ruling Republican Party. In addition to beating up the girl, the headmaster threatened to enforce a “military regime” in the school and conduct daily attendance checks.
According to our sources, the girl’s mother Yeranuhi Mkrtchyan, who is the school’s head teacher and the daughter-in-law of Republican mayor Mikayel Gharakeshishyan, also took part in the beating. Seda Tunyan, meanwhile, is the sister of Constitutional Court judge Arayik Tunyan.
Upd: Following the publication of the article, Yeranuhi Mkrtchyan sent us a message on Facebook, threatening to sue the website if we did not take down “this idiocy.” She later send us an email with the following refutation:
“The Stepanavan High School after Hovhannes Tumanyan officially informs that the information published on epress.am has nothing to do with reality. The issue of the participation of minors in marches is decided by their parents, and not by the headmaster or employees of the school. No such incident has taken place in the Stepanavan school; therefore we ask you to either take down the article or include our official refutation in it.”
P.S. We have since again contacted our sources, and they all insisted that the incident had taken place.