ARTUR SAKUNTS: CITIZENS ARE NOT THE SAME AS THEY WERE IN 2008
17:23, April 22, 2018 | News, Other news
Chairman of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor human rights defender Artur Sakunts holds that the use of coercive means is not going to save the authorities, and the isolation of the deputies leading the “Make a step and reject Serzh” movement is only going to give rise to legal problems for Serzh Sargsyan.
– Is detaining and holding deputies for 72 hours lawful?
The Constitution clearly established the cases in which deputies may be deprived of their inviolability without the agreement of the NA. They can be held for 72 hours if they have committed a crime. That is to say, if they have committed a murder or theft or another crime under the Criminal Code. Nikol Pashinyan, Ararat Mirzoyan and Sasun Mikayelyan have not committed any crime under any of the articles of the Criminal Code.
It is obvious that a political decision was made after the morning meeting with Serzh Sargsyan; the aim of that decision, in their logic, is to isolate, even illegally, the leaders of the “Make a step and reject Serzh” movement, attempting to take the movement under control or to influence the movement, causing it to die down. In legal terms, Serzh Sargsyan, in my opinion, did not assess it accurately. He will have to answer serious questions. In political terms, he is not taking it into consideration that citizens have not remained the same as they used to be in 2008, and today he has to deal with the youth mainly. And he will have to deal with the parents of these youths due to these actions.
– Do you think the movement may die down without a leader?
The movement is not going to die down. Serzh Sargsyan is not going to be able to govern again.
– He believes that the people are not in the street, that those who voted for the Yelk (Way Out), constituting 7-8%, are too few to obligate the authorities to do such things; they constantly talk about legitimacy.
Legitimacy is not given to anyone initially. Today it can be 100%, and tomorrow it may be 0. It means to be engaged in numeric tricking when people all over the RA are rebelling against that “legitimacy”. Secondly, it is not about the Yelk. It is not the numbers that are the source of legitimacy, but the position of citizens, which is obvious. Trying to conceal the actual lack of legitimacy with the legitimacy faked one year ago is not a reasonable approach.