“People, for example, in Syunik, were already trying to create a state within a state,” stated Gevorg Papoyan, a member of the Civil Contract party, during the “Sunday Analytical with Hrayr Tamrazyan” programme on “Azatutyun”.
The deputy considers the “crushing of that process” not as persecution of certain individuals, but as a “state-building process”.
The “Armenia” alliance has insisted that its members are subjected to political persecution, that the detained members of the “Armenia” alliance are political prisoners. In response to this question, Gevorg Papoyan said that according to the criminal cases, some of those people have committed abuses, some have engaged in corruption, another segment has distributed bribes, and “I think that, forgive me, but it is laughable to consider as political prisoners or politically persecuted over time those who distribute electoral bribes, those engaged in corruption, those who forcibly send people to vote, who have essentially become bdeshkhs in their territories. And, you know, even in that case, even under those pressures, the very same Syunetsi people gave a worthy answer to those people, and today, if you have noticed, apart from a few limited number of people who are members of the ‘Armenia’ alliance, apart from them, no one among the people considers that those people are political prisoners. I am not familiar with the criminal cases of those people, but in any case, let us go among the ordinary people and ask, I do not know of anyone who considers those people political prisoners. Political prisoners were the people who ended up in prisons after March 1, 2008, in my opinion, one should not put an equal sign here.”
