“Zhoghovurd” hits out at Artur Aghabekian, a senior Nagorno-Karabakh official who condemned on Wednesday the publication on the Internet of a video that shows Karabakh police officers beating opposition activists from Yerevan who attempted to travel to Stepanakert. The paper says that Karabakh Armenian leaders as well as their counterparts in Yerevan have still not realized that “the world has changed and any citizen possessing a mobile phone is an entity capable of spreading information.” It says that Aghabekian should have condemned the violent crackdown instead.
“He is worried not so much about that savagery as the spread of the video depicting it,” adds “Zhoghovurd.” “This is an unacceptable mindset, to say the least. It is deeply entrenched in the minds of virtually all high-ranking Armenian officials.”
“Zhamanak” says that with his gathering of opposition forces held on Thursday Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) leader Gagik Tsarukian is staking a claim to undisputed leadership of the opposition camp. The paper says that by effectively boycotting the gathering Levon Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian National Congress (HAK) is “casting doubt on the legitimacy of Tsarukian’s conference.” “This is an absolutely understandable and expected reaction,” it says.
“Chorrord Ishkhanutyun” comments on the latest list of Armenia’s leading corporate taxpayers that has been released by the State Revenue Committee. It is topped by the country’s natural gas and electricity distribution companies, mobile phone operators, fuel importers, cigarette manufacturers and “oligarch” Samvel Aleksanian’s Aleks-Grig company enjoying a de facto monopoly on food imports. “Note that all of these companies are involved in imports,” writes the paper.
“168 Zham” reports that the Armenian government has pushed through the parliament a bill delaying by another five months the enforcement of new tax rules fiercely resisted by many owners of small businesses. The paper says that the tax reprieve testifies to a lack of strategic planning within the government on just about every issue. “What will happen on July 1 and afterwards?” it asks. “Fresh protests and demands for another reprieve?”
(Tigran Avetisian)