Lawmakers representing the Civil Contract party voted to dismiss Taguhi Tovmasian as chairwoman of the National Assembly’s committee on human rights after a brief session. The vote was boycotted by their colleagues from the opposition Hayastan and Pativ Unem alliances.
Civil Contract’s Hovik Aghazarian was the only parliament deputy who spoke during the session. He repeated the ruling party’s complaints that Tovmasian did not attend most meetings of the Armenian parliament’s leadership and did not stop “hate speech” when her committee discussed on April 4 candidacies for the then vacant post of the state human rights defender.
Edgar Ghazarian, the opposition candidate for the post, enraged pro-government lawmakers with his claim that the 2018 “velvet revolution” that brought Pashinian to power was in fact a “Turkish-Azerbaijani revolution.” They shouted abuse and threats at Ghazarian during the meeting chaired by Tovmasian.
One of those lawmakers, Artur Hovannisian, pledged to “cut the tongues and ears of anyone” who would make disparaging comments about the regime change. Pashinian’s party did not criticize his behavior.
Tovmasian, who is affiliated with Pativ Unem, insisted that she did nothing wrong on April 4. In a written statement, she also argued that the parliamentary statutes did not require her to attend meetings of the National Assembly’s Council consisting of speaker Alen Simonian, his deputies as well as the committee chairpersons.
Tovmasian again claimed that Pashinian personally ordered his loyalists to strip her of the parliamentary post in retaliation against her defection from his political team following Armenia’s defeat in the 2020 war with Azerbaijan.
“As you can see, any dissent in Armenia is strangled by imprisonment and dismissal,” added the former journalist and newspaper editor.
Armenia - Taguhi Tovmasian (right) and other deputies from Pativ Unem bloc attend a parliamernt session, September 14, 2021.
Pativ Unem voiced strong support for Tovmasian, saying that she acted professionally on April 4 in the face of her pro-government colleagues’ “hooligan behavior.” The official grounds for her dismissal are “completely baseless and illegal,” the opposition bloc charged in a statement.
Hayastan also condemned Tovmasian’s dismissal. “The government cannot put a straitjacket on the opposition; that means totalitarianism, dictatorship, tyranny,” said one of its senior parliamentarians, Artsvik Minasian.
Armenian law reserves a number of leadership positions in the parliament for the opposition minority. Tovmasian’s ouster left the opposition without any such posts.
Hayastan’s Ishkhan Saghatelian and Vahe Hakobian were ousted as deputy speaker and chairman of the parliament committee on economic affairs respectively in July 2022 after weeks of anti-government protests organized by Hayastan and Pativ Unem. Another Hayastan deputy, Armen Gevorgian, immediately resigned as chairman of a committee on “Eurasian integration” in protest.
Both opposition blocs made clear on Tuesday that they will not nominate a new head of the human rights committee. Civil Contract likewise said that it will not install Tovmasian’s successor.
Nevertheless, the ruling party will effectively gain control of her post even in the absence of a new committee chair. In line with the parliamentary statutes, the human rights panel will be run, in an acting capacity, by Rustam Bakoyan, its deputy chairman affiliated with Civil Contract.
Last year, Bakoyan’s former wife accused him of systematically beating her, publicizing purported photographs of injuries sustained by her. Bakoyan, who denied the allegations, was not prosecuted or even censured by Pashinian’s party.