Ruben Rubinyan Addresses Levon Kocharyan: "People Were Beaten With Batons While Asleep"

During the first session of the ninth convocation of the National Assembly of Armenia, newly elected President Ruben Rubinyan delivered a speech in his capacity as chair of the session. He addressed the accusations made by Levon Kocharyan, a member of the "Armenia" faction, regarding the events of March 1.

According to Rubinyan, the lawmaker spoke of events that many present in the hall had experienced firsthand. "Mr. Kocharyan, I always feel a bit uncomfortable in your presence or when I speak with you about your father, as it is not the most pleasant thing to tell a son that I consider your father a bad politician or a bad person and so on, but I am compelled to do so solely because you are a lawmaker, a political figure, and you are here," Rubinyan told Kocharyan.

Rubinyan asserted that Levon Kocharyan spoke about March 1, hoping that young people who did not experience those days would listen to and believe him. "I do not exclude that you, being young at the time and your father's son, perhaps did not see reality clearly or that H1 was the only channel playing at your home, as everyone knows what they broadcast at that time, and you believed it. I do not rule that out. Power has that quality of cutting a person off from reality," he remarked, presenting the events of March 1 at 6:00 AM.

He emphasized that people were sleeping at that hour. "The only thing they did was sleep or snore. Special forces came and started beating everyone with batons. People fled, they beat people from behind. Now, please tell me, what were those people doing?" he added, addressing the lawmaker and encouraging him to compare the incidents with recent events.

According to the Assembly President, the latter considers beating asleep individuals with batons at 6:00 AM to be normal. "This is a problem, Mr. Kocharyan. And then you play a recording where Nikol Pashinyan says, 'take your things to defend yourselves.' Of course, they should take their things to defend themselves. Just a few hours earlier, special forces attacked people. What did you expect? Wasn't it clear that they would barricade themselves? They were defending themselves from your father," Rubinyan declared.