Student's Work Was Completely Plagiarized: Dean Comments on Rumors of Manukyan's Dismissal from YSU

As reported, YSU student Manuel Manukyan posted on his Facebook page yesterday, stating that he is being politically persecuted, and that he was deliberately removed from the university and denied his diploma.

The activist student specifically wrote: “YSU is completely politicized and serves the interests of Nikol Pashinyan. I study at the Faculty of International Relations at YSU, and today, during my thesis defense, I was deliberately not appointed for my presentation, out of the entire cohort, I was the only one, and they had no justified reason. From the reviewer to the committee members, they had one problem, which was to not appoint me. If they had appointed me, perhaps many others would have been removed from the process. There is an atmosphere of fear and violence at YSU. The members of the committee and the supervisor carried out a political order. With such actions, they are trying to silence and intimidate me so that I do not express my political stance regarding today’s Turkish-dependent authorities, but those who know me well know that such low blows cannot silence or stop me,” the student wrote.

Auroranews spoke with Gegham Petrosyan, the dean of YSU’s Faculty of International Relations, to clarify whether the student’s rights were violated and what actually happened. Petrosyan stated that the incident concerning the student was inaccurately presented to the public: “I consider the characterization regarding political persecution to be nonsense. A negative evaluation was given to his thesis review just three days ago, but we discussed it with our staff and decided to give the student an opportunity to defend himself. During the defense, he proved that he was unable to present himself as required, and when we discussed the situation with the writer, it turned out that the work was entirely plagiarized. I can summarize the incident in this way,” said the dean.

The dean noted that his statements are fully verifiable and that YSU can provide a recording of the student’s presentation. “After the negative review of the work, we warned him about what comments would be made and told him to prepare to be presentable. He did not manage to succeed. I don’t understand the reason for this hysteria. It’s a defense and he couldn’t overcome it, that’s it,” Petrosyan emphasized.