Alen Simonyan Responds to Edmond Marukyan's Claims of Online Abuse

If "Enlightened Armenia" believes that the referendum is wrong, unconstitutional, and is accountable to its voters, it should guide those people. If they claim the referendum is unconstitutional, that they are against 'yes', against the referendum, and are not taking any action, it turns out they simply have not taken a position.

This was stated by the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Alen Simonyan, during a conversation with reporters today, February 11, addressing the statements made by the head of the LHK, Edmond Marukyan, that they would not participate in the referendum process, nor in the 'no' or 'yes' camps, as participating in that process would essentially mean engaging in a procedure that is unconstitutional.

Regarding Marukyan's statement that they are not participating in the process to avoid contributing to the generation of hatred, the Deputy Speaker said, "So is hatred to be generated by the people's voting? He showed some papers saying he was threatened. I can show you the 'Edmond Marukyan Fan' page that, to put it mildly, was writing unpleasant things about me two days ago. It was an insult, not a threat. I sent that to him and asked, 'What is this, Edmon dear, are you talking about us?' I accept that no one should be threatened, including Mr. Marukyan. That is unacceptable and severely condemnable. But to say that this is being done specifically by the authorities, that they have trolls, is unacceptable. I can specifically show what people are writing about us. We have nothing to hate or insult anyone over."

Simonyan also commented on Prime Minister Pashinyan's statement that forces campaigning for 'no' would be considered anti-state forces: "If we start equating political assessments with hatred, I can find hate speech in every interview of Mr. Marukyan, starting with the last one, due to his manner of speaking, sarcasm, and ridicule. What has actually been said is political speech. We have one problem, which is that politicians must be honest. I do not see an honest approach here."

Simonyan pointed out that in Armenia, power belongs to the people, and if 650,000 to 700,000 people go out and say 'yes', all legal arguments become irrelevant. He added, "If you have something to say to your voters, come out into the street, gather your 80,000 people, and say 'dear people, we believe it should be 'no' for this and that reason.'"