{"id":270962,"date":"2016-02-09T17:28:02","date_gmt":"2016-02-09T13:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=270962"},"modified":"2016-02-09T17:28:02","modified_gmt":"2016-02-09T13:28:02","slug":"contract-serviceman-forced-to-resign-due-to-political-beliefs-defense-minister-sees-no-grounds-for-complaint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2016\/02\/09\/contract-serviceman-forced-to-resign-due-to-political-beliefs-defense-minister-sees-no-grounds-for-complaint.html","title":{"rendered":"Contract Serviceman Forced to Resign Due to Political Beliefs; Defense Minister Sees ‘No Grounds’ for Complaint"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tArmenia's Defense Ministry forced contract serviceman Tigran Mazmanyan to leave the Armenian armed forces because of his political beliefs. As reported by Forrights.am<\/span><\/a>, Mazmanyan wrote on his Facebook page that in addition to losing his job, he was concerned that authorities might try to “put pressure on me.”<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“I worked as a contract serviceman at [one of Defense Ministry’s military units], while continuing simultaneously to fight against injustice.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“It all started back on November 5, 2015: a peaceful assembly and a march was set to be held [in support of Shant Harutyunyan<\/span><\/a> and friends], and I took it upon myself to notify [city authorities] about the rally since my friend, Shahen Harutyunyan<\/span><\/a> (Shant Harutyunyan's son)<\/em> is a minor.\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“The march was scheduled for 6 pm, i.e., I could take part in it after work. On the day of the rally, at around 1 pm, I was summoned by the unit commander […] and warned that high-ranking officials had taken interest in me. [The commander] gives me two options: to either stay and continue my service or resign and focus on my chosen fight. Having been given only 10 minutes to make a decision, I thought, taking into account the current political situation, that my [military] service would be of greater use to my country,” Mazmanyan's Facebook note read.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAbout two months following the incident, the former serviceman added, he was called in to the military unit and presented with notes and photos from his personal Facebook page: “They said I was making revolutionary and anti-state calls on social networks. I don't think that statements addressed to the person occupying the president's seat should be considered as 'anti-state',” Mazmanyan wrote.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAs regards his photo with Shahen Harutyunyan, the former serviceman wrote, military authorities told him: “This is Shant's son. You're close to him. Why would you post this photo? Do you think it's a heroic act or something?”\n<\/p>\n

\n\tMazmanyan was advised to write a memo and resign voluntarily: “Generally, resignation memos are approved no earlier than 30 days after submission; mine, however, took only 15 days, so I don't rule out  that my resignation order had come sooner than I submitted the memo.”\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking to reporters Tuesday, Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan commented on the incident, saying that Tigran Mazmanyan “has no grounds for complaint against military leadership: he was engaged in politics, and Armed Forces should remain politically neutral.” The former serviceman, Ohanyan added, had one prior reprimand and resigned from the army “on his own accord.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan commented on the incident, saying that Tigran Mazmanyan \u201chas no grounds for complaint against military leadership…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":270953,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[13815,10268,29887,10329,15655,22738,27008,19903,14362,12998,53112,51376,63923],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270962"}],"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=270962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}