Tatoyan told the Aravot newspaper earlier this week that the activists and their parents received threats after attending a recent meeting with him in the provincial capital of the same name. He claimed that local authorities controlled by the ruling Civil Contract party identified them after studying pictures of the meeting posted on social media.
“They went to people’s homes to intimidate them,” said Tatoyan. “Some were threatened with dismissal, others with a cut in their pay and so on. These are concrete examples that show that there is a government in the country that is afraid of the people.”
Tatoyan echoed claims made last month by Levon Chukalian, another senior member of his Wings Of Unity party, a major opposition contender in the June 7 parliamentary elections.
“Their photos were sent to their colleges, their parents' places of work, and there were attempts to intimidate them through their relatives,” Chukalian said at a news conference. “One of the young people said that he will not be able to participate in future [Wings of Unity] events.”
One of the opposition youths spoke with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on the condition of anonymity. She said that following the meeting with Tatoyan an unknown man phoned her father, a civil servant, and threatened to have the latter fired.
“Through educational institutions and parents, they have warned not just me but also all other [Wings of Unity] volunteers,” she said.
“We keep volunteering and supporting [the party] very actively. We just don’t do that publicly and avoid cameras,” added the young woman.
Vahram Khachatrian, the Armavir governor leading the provincial branch of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, flatly denied the allegations.
“If they know the names, know who they are, let them say it, I will make sure that such things don't happen,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “But I'm sure they didn't happen. In my opinion it's a lie.”
Armenia’s Investigative Committee said, meanwhile, that it cannot investigate the allegations in the absence of a formal complaint from Tatoyan’s party or its individual activists.
This and another law-enforcement agency, the Anti-Corruption Committee, have arrested in recent months scores of opposition members and supporters on charges of vote-buying and other election-related offenses. No members of Pashinian’s party are known to have been prosecuted in the run-up to next month’s elections.