“Extra-parliamentary forces are abusing the opportunities afforded by democracy and are dividing our society,” Secretary of the Security Council Armen Grigoryan told reporters after the government meeting.
Grigoryan recently made a public statement, writing in the Civilnet periodical: “In a number of countries around the world, democracy has experienced decline because democratic forces did not exert sufficient effort to protect democracy. Anti-democratic forces have used the opportunities given by democracy to spread anti-democratic values, to undermine public solidarity, and thereafter to create a monopolistic and totalitarian system. History knows of several declines of democracy. A striking example of these is the fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler to power,” wrote Armen Grigoryan.
In response to Azatutyun’s question as to which forces he was referring to, he replied: “I cannot speak about them at this moment. Naturally, they are mainly extra-parliamentary. And let me put it this way: those forces operate mainly through fake accounts and non-public appearances. That is, the fake news they spread — most of it is spread from fake accounts, and having greater freedom on fake accounts, they give rise to more negative phenomena. It is often difficult to know who stands behind those fake accounts, because there are restrictions regarding the data; often Facebook does not provide data. But in that regard [that representatives of the former authorities also stand behind those fake accounts], certain well-founded suspicions arise.”
“History shows that democracy needs protection, and the authorities have both the powers and the obligations to protect democratic values and institutions,” said Armen Grigoryan.
To Azatutyun’s next question as to what the authorities intend to undertake, he answered: “The steps are multi-layered. There is no single clear step by which one can say that, look, by taking this step we are going to solve all the issues.”
