A car belonging to a member of the opposition of the municipal council of Yerevan was seriously damaged Tuesday May 6 in the morning in an apparent criminal fire that he and his movement Mayr Hayastan attributed to the Armenian authorities.
The fire destroyed the car and exploded one of his windows before the city councilor, Gevorg Stepanian, rushes out of his building and exempts him with the help of his neighbors. The electric vehicle, officially owned by Stepanian but driven by his wife, was parked in front of the building.
“When the police arrived and opened the door, we saw a wooden stick surrounded by a cloth soaked in petrol,” said Stepanian.
The commission of inquiry later declared in the day that it had opened an investigation for deliberate damage or destruction of goods. The police did not immediately identify suspects.
Stepanian, who openly criticizes the municipal administration of Yerevan controlled by the Prime Minister’s civil contract party, described this reprisals attack for its political activities.
“I have a problem with these authorities: civil contract and [son partenaire de coalition] Hanrapetyun, he told journalists. They only care about filling their pockets. We have to release Erevan from the civil contract and organize new elections. »»
“No one, whatever it is, will be forgiven to have terrorized my wife and my three children,” said Stepanian, committing to redouble their efforts to fight against what he considers generalized corruption within the municipality.
-Mayr Hayastan, who arrived third in the last municipal elections of 2023, the accusation resumed in a statement.
“This is a politico-criminal attack against Mayr Hayastan, which is not the first and which has manifested itself in various ways,” said the opposition group.
Armen Galjian, who heads the civil contract group to the municipal council, was quick to sentence the criminal fire. A member of the group, Levon Levonian, excluded any political motive behind this act.
“Accusing civil contract of such acts is unacceptable and dishonest,” said Levonian to the Armenian service of RFE/RL. I officially declare that Civil Contract has never used and will never use such methods. »»
Mesrop Manukian, another city councilor of Mayr Hayastan, however insisted that the attack was the result of the impunity which the faithful of the government enjoy. He notably argued that the northern district chief of Nork, in Yerevan, Tigran Ter-Margarian, had not been dismissed despite having passed a critical blogger of the municipal administration last week.
The attack occurred a few days after the blogger, Artur Chakhoyan, and Manukian filmed and broadcast a video showing a public nursery school in Nork, renovated at the beginning of the year but already in a state of advanced dilapidation. Ter-Margarian reacted by threatening and insulting the two men during a telephone call whose registration they shared with journalists.
Reprinted with permission from RFE/RL Copyright(c)2007 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.1201 Connecticut Ave, t N.W. Washington DC 20
