The violence occurred during an ill-tempered meeting of the parliament committee on legal affairs held on March 31. It reportedly followed a shouting match between Vladimir Vartanian, the committee chairman, and Mher Sahakian of the main opposition Hayastan alliance.
Sahakian was detained by police but set free three days later. He said he hit Vartanian because the latter spoke disrespectfully and then stood up and walked menacingly towards him. Vartanian, who represents Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, denied that, saying the assault was unprovoked.
Vardapetian backed the pro-government parliamentarian’s version of events in her letter asking the National Assembly to allow prosecutors to charge Sahakian with two counts of “hooliganism.” The chief prosecutor, who worked as an aide to Pashinian until last summer, stopped short of requesting a separate permission to arrest the opposition deputy pending investigation.
The parliament controlled by Civil Contract is expected to discuss and vote on lifting Sahakian’s immunity from prosecution on Tuesday.
Reacting to the development, Sahakian’s lawyer, Ruben Melikian, insisted that his client threw a punch “for the purpose of necessary self-defense” and did not commit any hooligan acts.
Another Hayastan parliamentarian, Kristine Vartanian, sarcastically “thanked” the authorities for seeking to prosecute Sahakian.
“This will, no doubt, be a good opportunity to discuss what happened in the National Assembly, present the truth to the public, expose the government's lies … and burst another bubble of the ruling force,” she wrote on Facebook.
Sahakian’s swift arrest and likely prosecution sharply contrast with the law-enforcement authorities’ response to ugly incidents involving lawmakers affiliated with the ruling party.
One of those pro-government lawmakers, Vahagn Aleksanian, kicked Hayastan’s Vahe Hakobian as the latter gave a speech on the parliament floor in August 2021. Hakobian and five other opposition deputies were hit by a larger number of Civil Contract lawmakers in an ensuing melee witnessed by Pashinian. Nobody was prosecuted in connection with that violence.
As recently as last week, the authorities faced calls to launch criminal investigation into parliament speaker Alen Simonian, who spat at an opposition heckler, and other pro-government deputies, who shouted verbal abuse and threats at an opposition candidate for the vacant post of Armenia’s human rights defender. One of those deputies publicly pledged to “cut the tongues and ears of anyone” who would make disparaging comments about the 2018 “velvet revolution” that brought Pashinian to power.
The Office of the Prosecutor-General has not ordered criminal investigations into either incident.