Who Organized the Black-Dressed Mothers' Action and Why

The newspaper "Joghourt" reports: "Yesterday, while the government building was holding a regular session, outside, in front of the building, the mothers of soldiers killed in the Artsakh war gathered, demanding a meeting with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. The family members of the fallen soldiers were requesting that the government make a decision during the session to allocate 30 million drams to each family of the deceased, as was the case with the compensation bill for families of those killed on March 1st.

Of course, the dissatisfaction of the black-dressed mothers might be justified from the perspective of justice and equality, but there were several unclear elements in yesterday's aggressive events. Firstly, who was the organizer and main actor of the action? It was Mesrop Manukyan, a former MP and assistant to the dismissed general Manvel Grigoryan, a person whose name is associated with electoral fraud in online search engines, a man who served the Republican regime of Armenia, and who refused to speak about his once-beloved general during the days of Manvel Grigoryan's arrest.

According to information from the "Joghourt" daily, Mesrop Manukyan has been collaborating with Margarita Khachatryan, the head of the "Soldier" coordinating council, to organize such actions for a long time. Manukyan, however, rejected his role as an organizer. In an interview with the "Joghourt" daily, he stated, "I did not organize this protest; I will comment on all this later." But another puzzling fact is that the same Mesrop Manukyan's brother, Artak Manukyan, was appointed as the deputy director of the St. Grigor Lusavorich Medical Center by a decree from the Minister of Health Arsen Torosyan (a friend of the minister), and essentially holds all financial functions there. Did Arsen Torosyan not know about this? Hardly. Knowing that he appointed the assistant of General Manvel, Mesrop Manukyan is now organizing protests against the Prime Minister."

For further details, see today's edition of the newspaper.