Monday, December 15 2014

The Armenian Parliament's Dec 15 special session on the case of Aram Manukyan, MP from the opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC), has actually been disrupted through the fault of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA).    

The session started at 6:30 pm on the demand of the non-power forces of Parliament, who collected 44 signatures for that. The opposition MPs demanded holding the session to approve the parliamentary factions' joint statement condemning the attack on MP Aram Manukyan and to demand punishment for the officials responsible for that incident.

However, at the session the RPA was represented by two people only - Speaker of the Parliament Galust Sahakyan and Vice Speaker Hermine Naghdalyan. Only 45 out of the required 66 attended the session, and they represented the 5 non-power forces: Prosperous Armenia, Armenian National Congress, ARF Dashnaktsutyun, Heritage, and Orinats Yerkir. The session has been put off for 3 hours. If the Parliament fails to maintain the quorum by 9:30 pm, the session will closed. 

The unknown have burnt the cars of four oppositionists lately, beaten up three Artsakh War veterans who harshly criticized the authorities, and attacked oppositionist parliamentarian Aram Manukyan and later his comrade Ashot Piliposyan. All these people claim that the authorities are behind those incidents.  

The police have detained Arshak Svazyan (born in 1973) suspected of beating Aram Manukyan. It is widely rumored by local media outlets that Svazyan is the former driver of Arakel Movsisyan (Shmays), MP from Republican Party of Armenia.  Meanwhile, Movsisyan denies these reports and swears that he bears no relation to the attack on Manukyan.