{"id":256139,"date":"2014-07-16T16:55:21","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T12:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=256139"},"modified":"2014-07-16T16:56:41","modified_gmt":"2014-07-16T12:56:41","slug":"political-activist-on-trial-urges-yerevan-mayor-not-to-betray-his-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2014\/07\/16\/political-activist-on-trial-urges-yerevan-mayor-not-to-betray-his-father.html","title":{"rendered":"Political Activist on Trial Urges Yerevan Mayor Not to Betray His Father"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">At the start of today&#39;s trial in the case against political activist Shant Harutyunyan and his friends,&nbsp;Harutyunyan urged Yerevan Mayor Taron Margaryan (pictured) not to install the statue of Soviet leader Anastas Mikoyan in the Armenian capital.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAccording to Harutyunyan, if the municipality wants to install monuments of Bolsheviks, it can install monuments to Kamo (Semeno Arshakovitch Ter-Petrossian), Sarkis Kasyan, and Aghasi Khanjyan, for example.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tMikoyan, unlike the others, Harutyunyan said, is a traitor not only to the state, but also to his family and father.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t&quot;At least you, whose father was Andranik Margaryan, dear Taron, you should know well what a sordid structure the KGB is. The KGB corrupts a man until the end, forces him to betray not only his country, but also his father. Don&#39;t become a son who betrays his own father. If you&#39;re forced because of your position, at least install Kamo&#39;s statue, not Mikoyan&#39;s,&quot; he said.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tTaron Margaryan&#39;s father, Andranik Margaryan, during the Soviet years was a member of the underground National Unity Party, which campaigned for Armenia&#39;s succession from the Soviet Union. In 1974, he was arrested and sentenced to two years in Soviet labor camps for fighting against the Soviet regime.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tRecently, there has been much discussion on social networking sites and in local media concerning the municipality&#39;s decision to erect a monument to Soviet leader Anastas Mikoyan. Many public and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/en\/2014\/06\/02\/by-installing-mikoyans-statue-in-yerevan-we-glorify-nimbleness-opinion.html\"><span style=\"color:#0000CD;\"><strong>cultural figure<\/strong><\/span><\/a>s, academics, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/en\/2014\/06\/05\/yerevans-anastas-mikoyan-st-changed-to-enver-pasha.html\"><span style=\"color:#0000CD;\"><strong>civil society activists<\/strong><\/span><\/a> are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.azatutyun.am\/content\/article\/25379517.html\"><span style=\"color:#0000CD;\"><strong>against the decision<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.&nbsp;<\/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>Shant Harutyunyan urged Yerevan Mayor Taron Margaryan (pictured) not to install the statue of Soviet leader Anastas Mikoyan in the Armenian capital.<!-- 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":248366,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[55748,56897,51376,19753],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256139"}],"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=256139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}