{"id":132433,"date":"2011-10-04T11:42:58","date_gmt":"2011-10-04T06:42:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=132433"},"modified":"2011-10-04T11:49:02","modified_gmt":"2011-10-04T06:49:02","slug":"unlike-on-mar-1-2008-no-one-was-shot-after-1996-presidential-election-opposition-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2011\/10\/04\/unlike-on-mar-1-2008-no-one-was-shot-after-1996-presidential-election-opposition-leader.html","title":{"rendered":"Unlike on Mar. 1, 2008, No One was Shot After 1996 Presidential Election: Opposition Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Armenian National Congress (HAK) leader Levon Ter-Petrossian on Monday responded to questions sent by journalists and members of the public via email, SMS and Twitter at an outdoor Q&amp;A session held in Liberty Square where opposition supporters have been staging nonstop rallies since Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Soon after the &#8220;open press conference&#8221; began, HAK spokesperson Arman Musinyan announced that they had received 400 questions since Sunday. Ter-Petrossian declared that he responded to 39 out of what had later become 500 questions, &#8220;less than 10%,&#8221; but if the people agreed to this format he would gladly continue responding to questions at such outdoor gatherings.<\/p>\n<p>One of the questions directed to Ter-Petrossian was as follows: &#8220;Many compare <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/2008_Armenian_presidential_election_protests\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Mar. 1, 2008<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span>, with Sept. 26, 1996 [when supporters of unsuccessful presidential candidate Vazgen Manukyan protested the presidential elections outside the parliament building]. What would you say to this?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The comparison is appropriate only in one case: both events took place after elections. The comparison ends there. That which happened in 2008 was unprecedented.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[In 1996,] Vazgen Manukyan came into parliament and said [to this supporters outside] if I don&#8217;t return in 20 minutes, come after me. At that time, all the police forces reported to [then prime minister] Serzhik Sargsyan. Then he changed his name. In his passport, he is Serzhik Sargsyan. When they [protestors] had approached the gates, Serzhik approached me, he said, boss, we have to shoot. I said, under no circumstances. But when it became known that the parliamentary speaker was kidnapped and subjected to lynch law, Sargsyan said we have to shoot \u2014 I said, only in the air. In the process, no one received any gunshot wounds. Whoever makes comparisons [between the events of 1996 and those of 2008] are the attorneys of those murderers,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;When they [protestors] had approached the gates, Serzhik approached me, he said, boss, we have to shoot. I said&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":132348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[33005,31480,65942,21114,15118,12179,33006],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}