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Armenians hold protest, prepare for uprising

6 October 2017 18:32 (UTC+04:00)
Armenians hold protest, prepare for uprising

By Rashid Shirinov

Armenia, a poor South Caucasus country, faces a number of problems today, which include unemployment, corruption, poverty, inflation, weak economy, low foreign investment, falling exports and many others. In this context, the Armenians, who are already tired of the Armenian government’s failures, periodically conduct protests in various cities of the country.

This time, a protest action, which gathered citizens who have claims against the authorities of the country, was held in front of the Government building in Yerevan. Armenian media note that among different problems, people raised the issue of the recent rise in the prices of goods.

“People, seeing these price hikes, must go out. This price rise is a signal for people that they should not sleep, they must get up as we have no other way to live,” one of the protesters said.

“Low wages, pensions of 30,000 drams ($63) – what will we live on?” he added. “Winter is coming, and they increase product prices with the aim to make profits. The Prime Minister, whom the people believed, showed his face.”

Other participants of the protest stressed that Armenian ministers and members of Parliament, who are driving around in luxury cars, cannot feel these price hikes on their own skin and the rise makes no difference to them.

Meanwhile, Zaruhi Postanjyan, who is the Chairman of the Apricot Country party and member of the Council of Elders of Yerevan, has announced the impending popular uprising in Armenia.

“We prepare a day of disobedience until the end of the year. It should be the all-Armenian day of uprising,” she told 1in.am. “On the same day and hour our citizens must take to the streets to declare their protest against the illegally existing government and to put forward their civil demand about the formation of a new government and a new political structure.”

Postanjyan added that three months left until the end of the year, so it is real that the uprising will take place and its idea will not be depreciated.

Armenians have serious reasons for such uprising. Currently, the total state debt of the country exceeds $6.2 billion, and it continues to grow every month, but this does not affect the well-being of the population in a positive way.

Moreover, the country’s population suffers from unemployment, which is the highest among the CIS countries, making up 19 percent. With every hundred new workplaces, several hundred of them are closed, thus making Armenian families even poorer than they were. Today, more than 200,000 of economically active people are unemployed in Armenia, and this is only the official data.

In this context, Armenians opt to leave the country for good. The number of people in the country continues to decline steadily year by year. Armenia’s population has decreased by 15,200 over the past year, and today it is even less than 3 million, according to the National Statistical Service.

The ones who leave Armenia get rid of all problems they had to suffer from in the country, but those who continue to live in Armenia have to find ways to survive there. Therefore, the protests of Armenians against the government have no end, and the expected popular uprising promises to cause a serious blow to the country’s authorities.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

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