Ali Hasanov: Developments in Armenia - rebellion against criminal, anti-people regime
The mass protests in Armenia are the Armenian people’s revolt
against the country’s criminal regime, said the Azerbaijani
president’s aide for public and political affairs, Ali Hasanov.
He made the remarks on June 25 answering reporters' question about
the protests that started in Armenia from June 20.
The Armenian police broke up a rally in the center of the country’s
capital. The rally was held in protest against the increased
electricity tariffs. The protests in the streets resulted in use of
water cannons against people. Due to use of police force many
people got injured and arrested, including the country's
journalists.
“The mass protests in Armenia are the Armenian people’s rebellion
against the criminal and anti-people regime of Serzh Sargsyan, the
rise of the social problems to the level of national disaster
during that government’s rule, the corruption’s and bribery’s
becoming a state policy, the anti-democratic governance methods,
the strangling of the people’s voice of truth and their mass
leaving the country,” said Hasanov.
Hasanov noted that the harsh and especially cruel dispersal of
protests by the government forces is the visible indicator of the
anti-democratic situation in Armenia.
“Hundreds of people were beaten, injured and subjected to
violence,” said Hasanov. “Special technical means were used widely
to disperse the protest.”
He underscored that even the journalists covering the rallies, as
well as the human rights defenders, were subjected to the violence
of the police and the special service agencies and they were
detained.
“The Armenian government, afraid of the people’s anger, resorted to
the cruelest means,” said the Azerbaijani president’s aide.
Hasanov said it is not surprising that the Western circles, which
usually exaggerate some small incidents in Azerbaijan expressing
their attitude towards them on the level of official structures,
remain silent on this issue.
He added that the continuing silence on serious law violations,
brutal treatment of citizens, media representatives and human
rights defenders in Armenia demonstrated by the West, which
expresses its attitude towards certain small incidents in
Azerbaijan at the level of the US State Department, the European
Parliament, the Council of Europe, the OSCE and the official bodies
of certain European states, is worth paying attention to.
The US government, which, at the State Department level, criticizes
the imprisonment of somebody who has committed a certain crime in
Azerbaijan, expressed its position on the ongoing processes in
Armenia through its embassy in this country, Hasanov said.
This attitude of the US to the ongoing processes in Armenia was
nothing but an attempt to divert the attention of the international
community from the essence of this issue, according to the top
official.
On that day, some European Parliament members, who were criticizing
Azerbaijan at the PACE plenary session, were behaving as if nothing
happened in Armenia, he added.
Ali Hasanov said that the western media covered this issue on the
surface only, while the international NGOs didn’t touch upon this
issue at all.
On the day when the protesters were violently dispersed in Armenia,
the Freedom House (the US-based NGO), which is notable for its
biased position towards Azerbaijan, made a report nearly presenting
Armenia as “an example of democracy”, Hasanov said.
All these facts show the double standards policy of the West, it
can’t be called otherwise, when a defamation campaign is
systematically organized against one country, while it is turned a
blind eye to the protest crackdown and human rights violation in
the neighboring country, according to Hasanov.
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