{"id":255907,"date":"2014-07-10T09:36:54","date_gmt":"2014-07-10T05:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=255907"},"modified":"2014-07-10T09:37:26","modified_gmt":"2014-07-10T05:37:26","slug":"yerevan-taxi-drivers-protest-ask-state-to-apply-existing-laws-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2014\/07\/10\/yerevan-taxi-drivers-protest-ask-state-to-apply-existing-laws-video.html","title":{"rendered":"Yerevan Taxi Drivers Protest, Ask State to Apply Existing Laws (VIDEO)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">Dozens of Yerevan taxi drivers held a protest yesterday, demanding the application of legislative amendments adopted a year and a half ago that stipulate yellow license&nbsp;plates are no longer mandatory for taxi drivers and can be replaced with white plates.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe taxi drivers claim that after the law was adopted many of them returned their yellow license plates, while others did not; however, the law has not been applied. As a result, those who kept their yellow plates have an advantage because customers prefer them, believing them to be legitimate taxi services; meanwhile, the yellow plates should&#39;ve been removed from circulation by now.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe drivers are asking state agencies to decide as soon as possible whether the yellow plates will remain or not.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t&quot;We are working at a loss, and this can&#39;t continue. Several years ago, we were obliged to get yellow plates and we did. Today, the public knows if the car has&nbsp;yellow plates then it&#39;s legitimate. Now, half are yellow; half are white. People became accustomed to the yellow: they seem them from afar and stop cars with yellow plates,&quot; said one of the drivers.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAn hour and a half after Wednesday&#39;s&nbsp;protest began, RA Ministry of Transport and Communication representative Davit Melkonyan arrived to speak with the drivers. He said the yellow plates will no longer be in operation; they will be removed after parliament adopts the new law.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tDissatisfied by this response, the drivers countered that this same parliament didn&#39;t waste a second to raise MPs&#39; salaries and &quot;they adopt laws favorable to them with the same willingness.&quot;&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t&quot;We have been working on an unequal playing field for 1.5 years; it&#39;s no longer possible [to continue like this]; the bank is squeezing us, the debts are increasing. Actually, what is so unusual? People are asking to apply the existing law, and the state is surprised. Be kind: reply to us within a week instead of saying wait until October, or I don&#39;t know what,&quot; concluded one of the drivers.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\n\t<iframe width=\"425\" height=\"344\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BrUeEGXzV8U?wmode=transparent\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen> <\/iframe><\/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>Dozens of Yerevan taxi drivers held a protest yesterday, demanding the application of legislative amendments adopted a year and a half ago that stipulate&#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":255890,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[23610,56764,56763],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255907"}],"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=255907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}