Armenian opposition announces campaign of civil disobedience aiming to make PM Pashinyan step down
YEREVAN, May 2. /ARKA/. Armenia’s leading opposition alliances - Hayastan and Pativ Unem - announced late on Sunday a campaign of “civil disobedience” aiming to topple Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and pitched tents in France Square, a downtown intersection of several key streets.
The opposition accuses Pashinyan of having planned to make sweeping concessions to Azerbaijan and hand over Nagorno-Karabakh to it.
Ishkhan Saghatelyan, deputy speaker of the parliament from Hayastan alliance, told several thousands of supporters: “From now on, the people have this square. From now on the power belongs to the people."
Saghatelyan said large-scale peaceful acts of disobedience will begin tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m.
"Tomorrow morning we start the process of depriving the current government of power. This is not a seizure of power. It is the constitutional right of decent citizens to fight and remove the renegade government as soon as possible. To remove in the name of Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenian people. Tomorrow, many streets and highways in the country will be closed" he said.
"It will be difficult, we will be detained, but it will not last long, after that there will be freedom, justice and unity in the country," he said.
Saghatelyan addressed the ruling Civil Contract party of Pashinyan saying that its MPS are "one man's prisoners," and that most of them have nothing to do with his crimes and decisions.
"You have a historic chance to correct your wrong, to stand with the people. This is your last chance to realize that and to be with the people. Then it will be too late. Understand, realize it and make a decision in the next couple of days," he said.
In a separate statement issued before the opposition’s rally, the National Security Service (NSS) warned that there is a “real danger” of violence and said it will not hesitate to counter “any kind of actions destabilizing Armenia’s internal stability.”-0-
