“Haykakan Zhamanak” says that a joint declaration adopted at a Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) summit in Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe on Tuesday makes no mention of the situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone. “Serzh Sarkisian said at a meeting with Vladimir Putin last week that the Azerbaijani side has escalated tensions on the border [with Armenia,] using not only automatic weapons but also artillery,” writes the paper. “Of course, we have to shoot back. I will talk about that in greater detail at the CSTO summit in Dushanbe,” Sarkisian told Putin.
“Chorrord Ishkhanutyun” reports that deputies from the opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) refused to clarify whether they will endorse after all President Serzh Sarkisian’s constitutional changes at the start of parliamentary debates on the issue on Tuesday. They said only that the BHK will not announce its official position on the controversial constitutional reform before October 5. “While the BHK is keeping its plans secret, political and public circles are sure that the BHK will not say no to the constitutional reforms,” writes the paper. “We are talking about a party that loudly yelled in the not so distant past: ‘There is no need for constitutional reforms in Armenia because the [root cause of the] situation existing in Armenia has nothing to do with the constitution.”
“Zhoghovurd” condemns a 9-year prison sentences that was given on Tuesday to Hayk Kyureghian, a 32-year-old man who fired gunshots from an air pistol outside a Yerevan court last year in protest against the imprisonment of more than a dozen opposition activists. “His action was more of an emotional outburst than a preplanned crime, and such a disproportionately severe punishment cannot fail to raise questions and make people think that the prison sentence against Kyureghian was more of retribution than adequate punishment,” the paper says in an editorial. “Especially considering the fact that we periodically witness numerous blatant crimes committed by various-level officials, their children, cousins or bodyguards.” It says that the latter usually get away with those crimes.
“Against such a background, by sentencing Hayk Kyureghian to as many as nine years in prison the authorities once again demonstrate that they will punish with extreme brutality those who revolt against their criminal-oligarchic system,” concludes “Zhoghovurd.”
(Nane Sahakian)