The Founding Parliament said on Wednesday that its nonstop anti-government protests in Yerevan will start as planned on April 24 despite the arrests of six leading members of the radical opposition movement.
Founding Parliament activists made this clear as they rallied outside a detention center in the Armenian capital to demand the release of the group’s top leader, Zhirayr Sefilian, and his five close associates.
“We have already managed to overcome a state of shock. This situation was predictable to us,” one of them, Vartan Hakobian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azautyun.am).
Law-enforcement authorities detained the six men and searched their homes and offices on Tuesday, accusing them of planning to provoke “mass disturbances” during the April 24 high-profile commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey. The authorities have to formally charge or free them by Friday.
Both the Founding Parliament and other, mainstream opposition forces dismiss the allegations as baseless and politically motivated. They consider the detainees political prisoners.
The several dozen activists who gathered outside the detention facility where Sefilian and his comrades are being kept were joined by Zaruhi Postanjian, a parliament deputy from the opposition Zharangutyun (Heritage). She was allowed to visit and talk to the arrested oppositionists.
“Their mood remains combative and they will keep fighting,” Postanjian told reporters afterwards. “They just want the people to show unity so that we can get rid of these illegitimate authorities.”
According to Hakobian, senior Founding Parliament members remaining at large met late on Tuesday to elect a new temporary leadership and discuss a contingency plan made by Sefilian. “Let nobody doubt that there is a group that will lead the people,” he said.
The Armenian authorities, meanwhile, defended the arrests and denied any political motives behind them. “There are and there can be no political prisoners in our country,” Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamian said in the parliament.
Gagik Melikian, a senior lawmaker from the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), said the authorities had sufficient grounds to launch the crackdown.
The arrests were also effectively justified by Armen Rustamian, a leader of the opposition Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun). Rustamian, who called for “preventive” government measures against the Founding Parliament last month, again condemned Sefilian’s movement for timing its push for “regime change” to coincide with the genocide centenary commemorations. That, he said, would be a “great gift” to the Turkish government.
“I had warned [the Founding Parliament leaders] and they should have appreciated that instead of slandering us,” Rustamian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).