Wednesday, April 17 2024 16:13

ArmInfo. Artsakh Ombudsman Gegham Stepanyan reacted with sarcasm to the statements of Hasmik  Hakobyan, a MP from the ruling "Civil Contract", that Artsakh refugees are the reason for the decline in democracy in Armenia.

This "brilliant" idea was voiced by a MP from the ruling force on the  air of the Public Television of Armenia. She, in particular,  complained that the Armenian authorities are forced to deal with  refugee problems and do not have time to implement democratic  reforms. Reacting to this verbiage of the Armenian MP, Stepanyan, in  particular, wrote: "It turns out that the reason for the slowdown in  democratic processes in Armenia is the problems of those forcibly  displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh."

"The ruling MP links the democratic regression or slowdown recorded  in the Freedom House report with the problems of forcibly displaced  persons from Artsakh, saying that the  government is busy with the  problems of displaced persons and are slowly developing democracy.  That is, beating a citizen under police control is not a sufficient  causal factor for this, and the social problems of the citizens of  Artsakh - of course! The people of Artsakh and their problems are  proclaimed to be the culprit of any negative phenomenon in Armenia,  and this is done purposefully," the Artsakh Ombudsman is indignant.

At the same time, he described what was happening as disgusting and  expressed hope that the representatives of Freedom House in Armenia  will comment on the statement of the representative of the ruling  power.

It should be noted that according to the annual report "Nations in  Transit 2024" by the international human rights organization Freedom  House, Armenia's democracy rating decreased from 3.11 points to 3.07  points.  Thus, Armenia is ranked 35th on a 100-point system, where 0  corresponds to the minimum level of democracy and 100 to the maximum.