As you might know, the ruling Republican Party and illegitimate president of Armenia initiated a Constitutional referendum in Armenia, which will be held on December 6 of 2015.
Armenian society has no need or positive attitude towards this initiative. It clearly realizes that the referendum has been initiated by non-legitimate president Serzh Sargsyan and Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) in order to re-establish (prolong) their power and change the nature of that power. The current Constitution forbids Serzh Sargsyan to run for the presidency for the 3rd time, so he decided to change governmental system making Armenia parliamentary country.
This will allow to rule the country for another decade and will eliminate the troubles of having presidential elections, the need for forgery/falsification and post electoral public disobedience (mass protests and murders of dozen of citizens on of March 1 of 2008).
Several oppositional parties and political figures initiated movement of <No> against the constitutional changes, including Founding Parliament political movement and Heritage Party. They establish joint opposition headquarters of <New Armenia> Public Salvation Front (hereinafter NA). NA plans to hold a protest in Yerevan on December 1.
NA members announced that if the government uses illegal force and attacks people during the protest, they will protect themselves and fight back. In fact, NA calls for civilian disobedience, because there is no way that people can say <No> to the proposed changes via referendum or using court system. The standard political processes (elections, voting, referendum, etc) do not work in Armenia because of governmental illegal activity, falsifications and illegal use of administrative resources. In such a case, the only thing that citizens can do is to disobey to the government, ignore the referendum and use their direct powers as sovereign legally protesting on the streets of the cities.
In response to these statements of NA members, the head of RPA fraction in Parliament Vahram Baghdasaryan announced that those statements are illegal and NA members must be prosecuted in accordance with the law. After his last such statements in March-April of 2015, seven members of Founding Parliament were charged with suspicion of organizing mass disorder in Yerevan and were kept in jail for 2 months. Even though they are free now, the charges were not dropped and the case was not dismissed keeping them in vulnerable position. The criminal case was not taken to court for criminal procedure and in fact, they remain as politically targets individuals.
Recently a video has been posted on the Internet, where a certain Philip Vardan Ekozyants aka Philip Vardan Meliksedek introduces himself as an Armenian living in Ukraine who is “concerned” about the activities of the opposition in Armenia . Always speaking in plural (presumably on behalf of himself and his patrons), he delivers unabashed threats to the Armenian opposition.
This person is well known in the Russian ultra nationalist circles and his videos with similar menacing and threatening campaigns in the context of the Ukrainian events in 2014 are widely disseminated not only on YouTube but also on other social networks.
Moreover, the authorities, in the person of Vahram Baghdasaryan (leader of RPA faction) and Gagik Melikyan (secretary of the same faction), as de facto spokesman of the regime, and the mass media subservient to their interests, are doing everything within their power, including dissemination of false information, to demonize the opposition, in particular NA, in order to “justify” the potential violence and illegal acts against the opposition.
On November 10 at 9 p.m. a group of police officers visited the head of NA Jirayr Sefilyan at his apartment in Yerevan. They offered him to show up for questioning in Investigation Committee of Armenia on November 11. According to Criminal Procedure Code of Armenia, for questioning invitation there must be a written notice to the person stating why he is asked to come in and for what criminal case. There is no need to show up with a group of officers. This is a show of unlawful force and power to pressure political person to refrain from his political activity. This is the evidence of how the ongoing criminal case is illegally being used in this crucial stage of movement. There is no doubt that such practice will continue and will intensify as we come closer to referendum date.
On the other hand, the law enforcement agencies of Armenia refrain from investigating claims of opposition and some internet-based media that the pre-referendum process is full of illegal activities. Particularly, the head of Constitutional court and high rank state officials started broad propaganda for Constitution (<Yes> propaganda) in violation of laws and current Constitution, which disallow judges and Constitutional Court members to participate in any political activity.
Furthermore, the state officials are involved during their working hours (without going to vacation) in Yes propaganda. The prime minister is appointed as a head of <Yes> headquarters. The governors (marzpets) are appointed the heads of Yes movement in counties (marz). The minister of Education is the host on Public Television propagandizing Yes. The Defense minister publicly gives orders to vote for the changes on referendum.
In fact, taxpayers pay for the dissemination of information and propaganda of something they are against. This also violates the nonpolitical nature of civil and state service and undermines state governance productivity. The state and local administrations are heavily involved in this political process. This is breach of all principles of democratic governance and separation of powers. The executive branch that should execute executing laws in fact violates them and promoting the proposed legislation. These all violations make No and Yes propaganda unequal and undermines the results of the referendum making them unacceptable and void.
Recently, the Parliament of Armenia passed the law allowing to vote by ID plastic cards, which do not allow to stamp an inked mark as required by law. This was made to have extra 150,000 electors to participate in referendum without ink mark. On the other hand, the officials announced about the increase in population, which is absurd. It is well established fact that population of Armenia is decreasing, even in accordance with state statistics of last 10 years. For example, in Lori region (marz) population increased by 47,000 citizens, meanwhile this marz is known by its high rate of decrease in population. According to official information, at least 700,000 citizens live outside Armenia, but they all are included in electoral lists. Other absurd is that the Police published the official number of electors-citizens (not all population may elect !), which is more than the last official number if total population in Armenia.
In Yerevan State University, the officials organize Yes propaganda and disallow No propaganda. The current Constitution forbids political activities in educational institutions. In number 46 kindergarten parents of children are required to vote Yes. All the personal of educational institutions (kindergarten and schools) list parents as Yes voters requesting their names, surnames and addresses. These lists are sent to RPA to show loyalty of directors and heads of educational institutions to the regime. The same process is going on in oligarchs' businesses, employers go through the same process propagandizing their employees. These are not exceptions, but rather the regular way of doing Yes propaganda across Armenia and this is not complete list of violations and illegal activities.
We believe that this way of handling the referendum process is violation of internationally recognized rights and freedoms (speech, media, press, political equality, protests, etc.). By creating unequal environment, the government undermines the whole process of referendum. The people and opposition will not recognize the results of this referendum if this will not stop immediately.
