Opposition MP Taguhi Tovmasyan unseated as chair of human rights protection committee

YEREVAN, July 11. /ARKA/. The ruling Civil Contract party of PM Nikol Pashinyan that controls 71 seats in the 107-member National Assembly, voted today to unseat opposition MP Taguhi Tovmasyan from Pativ Unem alliance as chair of the National Assembly’s Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs.  

The motion, submitted by the ruling party, was endorsed by 62 MPs. One MP voted against.

Both opposition alliances Hayastan and Pativ Unem boycotted the debates and the vote calling the process initiated against Tovmasyan illegal.

The vote came after the ruling party asked parliament speaker Alen Simonyan on Monday to consider terminating Tovmasyan’s powers as chair of the committee. The reason, according to the ruling party is that Tovmasyan took part in only 8 out of 46 sittings of the Parliament Council. She is also accused of failing to fulfill her duties as chair of the committee.

In a Facebook post today Tovmasyan expressed indignation at the initiative of the pro-governmental parliamentarians. In particular, she reminded that the parliamentary regulations do not envisage compulsory participation in the sittings of the Parliament Council.

She said also that according to various surveys, the committee she headed is one of the most active committees in the parliament, and Tovmasyan herself has organized dozens of meetings and discussions on topical issues, in particular, on the situation in Artsakh and border regions of Armenia and the crimes committed by Azerbaijan.

Tovmasyan accused the country's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of organizing harassment against her. "Prime Minister Pashinyan has instructed to take revenge on me for refusing to stay close to those who have been surrendering our homeland since 2020. But I cannot be intimidated or silenced. Freedom of speech and political freedom are irreplaceable values for me," she said.-0-