Elderly Individuals Assaulted with Eggs and Insulted: Vardevanyan on the Notable Incident in Gyumri

Aram Vardevanyan, a member of the Armenian National Assembly from the "Hayastan" faction, addressed the legal and moral aspects of the incident that occurred in Gyumri. He wrote on his Facebook page:

"The ruling authorities decided to involve a few elderly individuals, people of our parents' or grandparents' age, as provocateurs. To properly understand the situation, I would like to highlight a few key factual details. Our compatriots from the older generation appeared in public with eggs. They assaulted the boys' car and used the most vulgar, inexplicable insults. At a rally attended by thousands, only these four compatriots behaved with such premeditated intent and conduct. When the boys approached, the intensity of these inexplicable insults increased even more. In criminal law, there is the concept of provocation, and this is precisely that case.

Isn't it worth questioning what would drive our elderly compatriots—those with independent political views, veterans of the war, individuals with higher education, and patriotic young men who are very active in the "Resistance" movement—to express such insults, exclusively using eggs, which seem to create a basis for criminal cases and, in general, to reestablish the division between 'us' and 'them'? It is also clear that violence is never acceptable, whether you are confronting an elderly Armenian or a young person, or anyone else for that matter. For example, when officers of the police force, in the presence of Nikol Pashinyan, inflicted bodily harm on a young female MP in the National Assembly, he encouraged that behavior; he encouraged the act of injuring a pregnant woman and leaving the scene. There cannot be such divisive politics.

I cannot help but note that if there had been sufficient police forces, representatives of our elder generation would have been detained in such a situation (just bringing eggs would be enough), and force would have been used against them during the insults, meaning this unfortunate incident would not have occurred, but police forces are in Yerevan. Let's remember how many instances there have been of hooligan behavior by the ruling team, for which there were not even detentions. There will be no double standards. We will have national solidarity, and that’s final," wrote Vardevanyan.