A criminal scheme operates in Armenia, within the framework of which the authorities exert pressure from above on the directors of educational institutions so that they engage students and lecturers in the election campaign of the ruling Civil Contract party. Former Human Rights Defender of Armenia Arman Tatoyan, who heads the Wings of Unity party’s proportional representation list of the parliamentary candidates for the June 7 National Assembly election, announced this during a press conference Friday.

“Directors of [Armenia’s] educational institutions, in turn, instruct lecturers to do the same. The authorities, in order to escape accountability, appoint internal investigations so that their names are not circulated. Employees of educational institutions are involved in criminal activities. The current authorities operate according to the same scheme as the previous ones; these ones simply hiding behind the slogans of ‘democracy’ and ‘peace.’

I want to ask the prosecutor general and the head of the Investigative Committee: will the people who are leading the [election] campaign of the ruling party—[PM] Nikol Pashinyan, Lilit Makunts, Arayik Harutyunyan, Suren Papikyan—be arrested? They should be summoned for questioning and arrested,” Tatoyan noted.

He reflected also on the Armenian News-NEWS.am report on involving teachers from the Aparan community in the election campaign of the ruling party.

Tatoyan said that Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan, not having the right to do so, announced that he had instructed school principals to write letters of resignation. “Who are you to dismiss school principals? Besides, who will conduct an investigation? The provincial governors? They themselves are involved in that process,” Arman Tatoyan added, addressing Pashinyan.

Source: https://news.am/en/news/1035751