
ArmInfo. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, seeing the opposition's adamant commitment to advancing Aliyev's constitution, and seeing that mass arrests and fabricated cases were ineffective, decided to break the opposition in parliament with brute force. This is how Levon Zurabyan, Deputy Chairman of the Armenian National Congress, commented on the Armenian prime minister's reaction to today's brawl between members of parliament.
"The failure of Armenian Parliament Speaker Ruben Rubinyan to call a recess and the coordinated and clearly pre-planned actions of members of the ruling New Ermenistan Party demonstrate that we are dealing with a special operation by Aliyev's riot police in the Armenian parliament, the purpose of which was to suppress the opposition and secure the necessary votes for a constitutional referendum." "But their ingenuity is simply setting new records," he noted.
According to the politician, surrounded by the police, the National Security Service, investigative bodies, and the state apparatus at all levels, illegally using the leverage of all these state bodies to arbitrarily detain opponents, prosecute them on fabricated charges, and in some cases even carry out extrajudicial physical repression, Pashinyan allows himself to sink to the level of outright anti-state cynicism.
"Hey, kid, even Artashes Geghamyan beat you up in parliament, and you remained silent. Now, instead of condemning the violence in parliament, you, hiding behind security, are once again admiring the attack on democratic freedoms by your thugs. They held up well, they were definitely a thousand times stronger than you," Zurabyan wrote on his Facebook page, reacting to Pashinyan's post after the brawl in parliament. Following a brawl in the Armenian legislature, the Armenian Prime Minister wrote sarcastically on social media that he thought the opposition was "at least physically strong," but "it turned out that wasn't the case." Moreover, during a briefing today, the Armenian Prime Minister not only failed to condemn the incident, but even welcomed the actions of his allies, shifting all responsibility for the incident to the opposition. However, the footage clearly shows that it was a member of the ruling party who provoked the conflict.
It should be noted that on October 29, after Taron Chakhoyan, a member of the ruling Civil Contract faction, made offensive remarks about the family of Narek Karapetyan, head of the Strong Armenia faction, a verbal altercation erupted in the Armenian parliament. This altercation first escalated into a scuffle between members of parliament, and then into a physical altercation. As the situation escalated, Armenian Parliament Speaker Ruben Rubinyan did not call a recess, but merely called on members of parliament to decide whether they would continue the fight or return to their seats. However, tensions not only persisted but escalated further. The Parliament Speaker was forced to call in state security officers to calm the protesters. The conflict continued in the parliament hallway. Law enforcement officers were forced to erect a wall between ruling and opposition MPs to calm them down. The brawl resulted in damage to state property in the parliament hall.