This government’s goals always coincide with goals of Azerbaijan and Turkey — Kristine Vardanyan

Kristine Vardanyan, a member of the Armenia parliamentary faction, spoke live on Alpha News about the recent arrests among ARF members and presented the general situation.

“ARF members are accused of organizing a terrorist attack, seven were arrested, one of whom turned out not to be a party member. It was later revealed that this person has nothing to do with the party or the case—he was simply a craftsman and had no idea why he spent 72 hours in detention. All their homes were searched and nothing illegal was found. The weapons were all legal. In the last house searched, a grenade was discovered. That young man was detained for two months, but due to lack of evidence, he wasn’t charged with organizing terrorism, only with illegally possessing weapons and ammunition. This is the general situation, and why all this was done in parallel with the Aliyev-Pashinyan meeting, I think, is a very interesting question,” the MP said.

According to Vardanyan, Armenia has reached a point where any statement by the authorities may raise doubts.

“According to their interpretation, an 18-year-old boy is accused of organizing terrorism. They themselves have trivialized this extremely serious charge, and if tomorrow a real case of terrorism is revealed, more than half the public will treat it with ridicule. Even after the events of 2016, when the police station was seized, hostages were taken, two police officers were killed, those people from ‘Sasna Tsrer’ were not even charged under the terrorism article, because it is a very serious one. We have reached a point where even if the government announces that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, it might be met with suspicion,” the MP concluded.