Epress.am News from Armenia
Artur Sakunts, human rights defender and Head of Helsinki Citizens' Assembly Vanadzor office, has called on the Armenian Prosecutor General Gevorg Kostanyan to initiate criminal proceedings against Arakel Melkonyan, a member of the parliamentary faction of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, who has threatened “to decapitate and rape” those who talk negatively of Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan and his family members.
In the letter dated June 3, the human rights defender stresses that Movsisyan has openly threatened the people who had over the last few days spread information about or expressed an opinion on Ohanyan and his family.
Sakunts, in particular, quotes the following statements made by Movsisyan: “Those bastards are not so much at fault as their fathers, who must be found and beheaded, because their families, apparently, don't know what a family, a home is”; “God willing, I will personally catch and behead them”; “I urge them to stay put. If, God forbid, they are caught, they’ll most definitely be raped.”
“Evidently, Arakel Movsisyan has made public threats of decapitation and rape; moreover, he is urging to rape and behead,” Sakunts writes in his message. These statements, the human rights defender claims, contain elements of crime.
Note, the republican MP's remarks are, reportedly, linked to the suit filed by Seyran Ohanyan's wife Ruzanna Khachatryan against Armenian “Hraparak” daily demanding that the paper publish a retraction over a previously written article and issue an apology for libel. Khachatryan refers to the article “The Public Wants to Know,” published by “Hraparak” in May, 2015, according to which it has recently been revealed that a few years ago, while driving a close friend's car, Ruzanna Khachatryan had caused a car crash which resulted in her friend's death.