Vague assessments from international community do not deter, but  rather encourage authoritarianism in Armenia - Robert Amsterdam

ArmInfo.  Vague and unclear assessments from the international community do not deter, but rather encourage authoritarianism in Armenia. This was stated by Robert Amsterdam, founder and managing partner of Amsterdam and Partners LLP and international lawyer for Strong Armenia party leader Samvel Karapetyan, who supported the Armenia bloc's statement, which  critically assessed the interim statement of the Parliamentary  Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) delegation on the elections  in Armenia.

"The statement by the Armenia bloc faction is sobering and extremely  important. It reveals a bitter reality that some international  organizations stubbornly choose to ignore. We cannot talk about  'constructive cooperation' or 'democratic elections' when the regime  of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan openly uses the state's  entire punitive arsenal to suppress opponents," Amsterdam wrote in a  Facebook post.

He recalled that their law firm's 140-page report already presents  evidence of the judicial system being turned into an instrument of  the authorities and a coordinated campaign against the Armenian  Apostolic Church (AAC). He also noted that he fully agrees with the  assessments contained in the Armenia bloc's statement of May 13. "The  international community's vague and unclear assessments do not deter,  but rather encourage authoritarianism in Armenia. It's time to end  double standards. When the fundamental values of the country and the  Church are at stake, silence is complicity," the international lawyer  concluded.

As a reminder, the Armenia parliamentary faction responded to the  interim statement of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of  Europe (PACE) delegation following its visit to Yerevan on May 11-12  regarding the upcoming June 7 elections. The opposition faction  accused PACE of a one-sided assessment of the situation in Armenia  and of making groundless assertions. The Armenia faction also  expressed bewilderment at the fact that some concerns expressed by  opposition political forces were simply "heard" while the  government's points were presented as confirmed facts, and a number  of oral and written comments submitted by its members during the  meeting were ignored.