“Zhoghovurd” reports that dozens of members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) on Monday took turns to visit a police station in Yerevan and claim responsibility for a violent attack on a pro-government youth activist. The paper says the purpose of that was to make sure that the “real attackers” are not identified and punished by the police. It condemns this tactic “characteristic of the criminal underworld” and says Dashnaktsutyun as a whole admits responsibility for politically motivated violence. Dashnaktsutyun leaders, it claims, are thus hinting that “they are capable of more large-scale actions against their political opponents.”
“Haykakan Zhamanak” comments on protests staged by anti-government activists in recent days outside the Yerevan offices of U.S. billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF). “What deals a heavier blow to the traditional Armenian family: the Soros office or the fact that hundreds of thousands of Armenian men work abroad and do not see their families for years?” writes the pro-government paper. “The former authorities encouraged that. They supposedly developed the economy at the expense of remittances sent from abroad. How many of these vocal protesters held demonstrations at that time and warned that the out-migration of hundreds of thousands of men undermines the foundations of the traditional Armenian family?” The paper says they also turned a blind eye to government corruption and large amounts of money of which it says were wasted on the construction of new churches in Armenia in the last few decades.
“Why has the anti-Soros sentiment escalated now?” asks “Aravot.” “If the carriers of that sentiment mean to say that last year’s revolution was organized by Soros, then it’s a blatant lie. Popular discontent with the former authorities was huge and foreign interference was not needed to whip it up. If they mean to say that many of the current government officials and deputies have had ties with that foundation, then that is only right and natural. People wanted to engage in political or civic activities without being part of the youth wing of the [former ruling] Republicans.”
(Tatevik Lazarian)
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