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Opposition MP Says She Was Asked Not To Direct Questions To Armenia

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  • Opposition MP Says She Was Asked Not To Direct Questions To Armenia

    OPPOSITION MP SAYS SHE WAS ASKED NOT TO DIRECT QUESTIONS TO ARMENIA PRESIDENT AT PACE

    epress.am
    06.29.2011

    In 2010, Armenian authorities prohibited Heritage Party MP, member of
    Armenia's PACE delegation Zaruhi Postanjyan from participating in PACE
    (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe) activities. The
    ban was removed when the Council of Europe personally intervened
    on Postanjyan's behalf. This news was shared by Postanjyan herself,
    while speaking to journalists in Yerevan today.

    Armenian authorities, according to Postanjyan, have decided to change
    their policies.

    Recall, addressing Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan following his
    speech at the PACE summer session in Strasbourg, Postanjyan stated
    that an authoritarian regime has been formed in the Republic of
    Armenia and that elections have been rigged since 1995.

    "I would like to know, don't you wish to initiate real reforms, to
    join the statute of the International Court of Justice, to initiate
    pre-term, fair elections and resign? Nevertheless, I believe that,
    all the same, authoritarian regimes will fail; it would be better if
    you left voluntarily and our people will understand and accept that,"
    she had said, continuing to speak even after she surpassed the 30
    seconds allotted and was prompted to wrap up.

    The Armenian president, in response, said he wasn't preparing for
    pre-term elections in Armenia because neither is there the need nor
    does the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia allow for early
    elections to be held so easily.

    "To say after that response that we are more democratic than the
    Republic of Azerbaijan or Turkey is not right. We have to become a
    truly democratic state and it's not by posing a question that we have
    become or are on the path of becoming a democratic country," she said.

    The Heritage Party MP also commented on her ARF-D (Armenian
    Revolutionary Federation or Dashnaktsutyun) colleague Armen Rustamyan's
    statement that Dashnaktsutyun has never appealed to foreign powers to
    resolve domestic political issues. Postanjyan noted that Armenia is a
    full member of the PACE, which Republic of Armenia citizens pay for:
    "We're not a member there just like that, and it is our right to make
    use of the protection there."

    "Everyone knows what sort of persecutions have been carried out against
    me; everyone knows how they asked me to remove the question, not to
    ask a question," she said, declining to reveal who, in particular,
    asked her to refrain from posing questions.

    "It would've been great if Rustamyan said - and why didn't he ask
    a question? And I would very much like to know why Rustamyan, who
    is an opposition representative, didn't ask a question," Postanjyan
    concluded.

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