When You Speak Up About the Corrupt Management of Free-loading Officials, People Call to 'Not Politicize the Tragedy' – Karapetyan

The editor-in-chief of the Fact-checking Platform, Hakob Karapetyan, wrote on his Facebook page: "After tragic incidents, whether it's the Surmalu explosion or today's fatal accident on the Gyumri road, whenever someone speaks up about the freeloading officials and their careless management, there are always kind-hearted people who call to 'not politicize the tragedy.'

Dear people, it is time to understand that in any such incident, there are state bodies responsible. Yes, even if a shepherd gets struck by lightning on a mountain, the responsible party in a broad sense is the state, which should have installed lightning rods. If an earthquake claims lives, you might consider it a punishment from God, but ultimately, the responsible party on this earth is the state that failed to ensure seismic safety.

Now, regarding the tragic accident: it doesn't matter whether speeding was the cause, drunk driving, poor road markings, or the driver falling asleep. If the driver is impaired, then the police are failing in their preventive role; if the road markings are poor, then the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure has performed poorly in their oversight; if the brakes of the vehicle failed, then it didn't undergo technical inspection; if the minibus driver fell asleep at the wheel, then his organization is exploiting him or didn’t check his alertness before departure, and so on, and so on.

Of course, even if everything were done perfectly, it’s impossible to prevent all tragic incidents (even in Sweden, people die on the roads, though very few, much fewer compared to ours), but we must continuously raise these issues and especially hold state bodies accountable after loud incidents. For example, we are currently finishing an investigation with FIP.am, showing soon how the requirement to wear seatbelts is being widely violated, while the Ministry of Internal Affairs essentially ignores it.

Now, is it not legitimate to ask if the police had indeed been reformed and carried out proper explanatory, preventive work, and if people were broadly aware that they needed to wear seatbelts even when sitting in the back seat, might there have been fewer or no fatalities in today's accident? Because (oh, surprise) there are seatbelts for passengers in minibuses as well, and they must be fastened, especially on fast-moving highways."