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Day: September 22, 2023
Police officers detain a demonstrator during a protest against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Yerevan on September 22.
YEREVAN — Dozens of people have been detained as anti-government protests continued in the Armenian capital on September 22.
Armenian police said after noon local time that 84 people had been detained and charged with disobeying police orders. Armenian opposition groups later claimed some 350 supporters had been detained.
The developments came after opposition leaders called for street blockades and other protest actions to be held on September 22 in an effort to force Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian from power.
Protesters have vowed to continue their action until Pashinian is removed and have said they plan to disrupt a meeting of his cabinet expected later in the day.
Police, who have used stun grenades during clashes with demonstrators since protests began in Yerevan on September 20, had warned that they would implement “special measures” if the clashes continued.
Police reportedly detained one of the protest organizers, Andranik Tevanian, during the demonstrations on September 22. The former parliamentarian was released after being questioned by the Investigative Committee.
Tevanian said during demonstrations on September 21 that “with disciplined and united efforts” Pashinian’s ouster as prime minister “will happen in a very short time, even within days.”
Embattled Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
A son of Armenia’s former President Robert Kocharian, Levon Kocharian, was among the detained protesters. His lawyer said law enforcement officers “severely beat” his client during his apprehension.
Pashinian has come under criticism for the government’s response to Azerbaijan’s lightning offensive earlier this week against Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani territory that has a large ethnic Armenian population.
Azerbaijan has claimed that the offensive, which it describes as an “anti-terrorist operation,” has brought the breakaway region back under its control.
Pashinian told his government on September 22 that Yerevan would accept an influx of ethnic Armenians if they chose to leave Nagorno-Karabakh, but that such a massive resettlement would only occur if it became impossible for them to remain there.
Demonstrators have decried what they call inadequate government support for the ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, while opposition leaders have announced plans to initiate impeachment proceedings against Pashinian.
As anti-government demonstrators blocked roads and assembled in Yerevan’s central Republic Square on the morning of September 22, Pashinian expressed hope that ethnic Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh can remain there.
WATCH: Thousands of ethnic Armenians gathered at Nagorno-Karabakh’s only airport where Russian peacekeepers are based. They were seeking protection and possible transit to Armenia following two days of fighting.
Azerbaijan, meanwhile, has reportedly indicated it envisages an amnesty for Armenian fighters in Nagorno-Karabakh who give up their arms amid a tentative cease-fire that stopped the fighting, which broke out when Azerbaijani forces launched a 24-hour military offensive on September 19-20.
“Even with regard to former militaries and combatants, if they can be classified in such a way, and even for them we are envisaging an amnesty or alluding to an amnesty as well,” Hikmet Hajiyev, a foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev president, told Reuters.
Hajiyev also said that ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh have asked for humanitarian aid, which he said would begin to arrive on September 22. Media reports said at least four trucks with aid were seen headed toward Nagorno-Karabakh along the Agdam corridor that runs through Azerbaijan.
Hajiyev said that Baku seeks the peaceful reintegration of Karabakh Armenians.
The ethnic Armenian leadership of Nagorno-Karabakh said on September 22 that an agreement had also been reached for humanitarian aid to be trucked in from Armenia. The leadership said, however, that there had been no deal on security guarantees sought by Karabakh Armenians in exchange for giving up their weapons, or regarding a possible amnesty proposed by Baku.
On September 21, representatives of Azerbaijan and the ethnic Armenian leadership of the breakaway region failed to reach a breakthrough during closely watched “reintegration” talks in the western Azerbaijani city of Yevlax.
The two sides exchanged accusations and denials over reports of gunfire and apparent cease-fire violations in Nagorno-Karabakh’s de facto capital, Stepanakert, but more meetings are expected.
Separatist leaders in Nagorno-Karabakh said in a statement following the meeting that they were ready to continue talks with Azerbaijani authorities.
“The parties especially stressed the need to discuss all existing issues in a peaceful environment, noting the readiness to continue meetings,” the statement said.
Pashinian said on September 22 that the situation remains tense in Nagorno-Karabakh, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but which has enjoyed de facto independence since breaking away in a war in the 1990s.
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During a short but bloody war in 2020, Azerbaijan recaptured much of the territory as well as seven surrounding districts that had been controlled since the 1990s by ethnic Armenians with Yerevan’s support.
Some 120,000 ethnic Armenians live in Nagorno-Karabakh, and Pashinian on September 22 expressed optimism that they can get a real opportunity to return to their homes. At the same time, Pashinian noted a dire humanitarian crisis continues in Nagorno-Karabakh.
In a nationwide address on September 21, Aliyev declared victory in the offensive launched by his forces on September 19 after Baku accused “Armenian sabotage groups” for two separate deadly explosions in areas of Nagorno-Karabakh that are under the control of Russian peacekeepers.
The same day, UN Security Council members including the United States, Turkey, Russia and France called for peace, while Armenian and Azerbaijani officials traded barbs.
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoian, who called for the emergency meeting, accused Baku of an “unprovoked and well-planned military attack” and said Azerbaijan was likely to use force against civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh again unless prevented by global powers.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov countered by accusing Yerevan of spreading misinformation, insisting that Baku had carried out an anti-terrorism operation against Armenian forces.
The offensive was halted on September 20 after Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian leadership accepted a cease-fire proposal by the Russian peacekeeping mission, although sporadic fighting has been reported.
Nagorno-Karabakh human rights ombudsman Gegham Stepanian has said that at least 200 people, including 10 civilians, were killed and more than 400 others were wounded in the fighting.
RFE/RL could not independently confirm the casualty figures.
Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor-General’s Office on September 21 said six Russian peacekeepers had been killed during Baku’s military offensive, five “by mistake” by Azerbaijani forces and one by Karabakh Armenian fighters.
With reporting by Reuters and TASS
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景迈山 各民族共生共融的幸福家园_腾讯新闻
Published: 14:35 BST, 22 September 2023 | Updated: 14:48 BST, 22 September 2023
Vladimir Putin has lost one of his top nuclear submarine force commanders after his vehicle was hit by heavy machine gun fire while he was on a peacekeeping mission in Azerbaijan.
Captain Ivan Kovgan, 52, was gunned down in the disputed Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, where he was seconded as deputy commander of a peacekeeping force.
The 52-year-old military leader was also deputy commander of Russia‘s Northern Fleet submarine force based in the Arctic.
He died alongside Colonel Tagir-Murod Karaev, from Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defence Forces, along with four other Russian servicemen, when their UAZ Patriot vehicle was riddled with bullets by the Azerbaijani army.
‘Their vehicle came under fire. Everyone was killed,’ a source said.
Captain Ivan Kovgan (pictured) was killed by machine gun fire in Azerbaijan
His 4×4 vehicle was riddled with machine gun bullets
He and five other Russian servicemen were killed in the attack
Photos of the 4×4 vehicle that held the military figures show it was riddled with bullets.
Those responsible for the shooting of the submarine commander and other peacekeepers have been detained, and are expected to face criminal action.
Their commander has been suspended.
Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev personally apologised to Putin for the killing of Kovgan and the other peacekeepers, and promised financial compensation for their families.
‘In order to investigate all the causes of the incident, the investigative authorities of Azerbaijan and Russia are working on the spot,’ said the defence ministry in Baku.
Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev has personally apologised for the killings
Kovgan (pictured left) was deputy commander of Russia’s Northern Fleet submarine force based in the Arctic
It called for ‘patience’ during the probe and expressed condolences to the Russian military and the soldiers’ relatives.
The killings came as ceasefire between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenians in the region was declared, just 24 hours after Azerbaijan launched a military operation to gain full control over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mainly Armenia province.
The area lies in the mountains of the South Caucasus region of eastern Europe and Asia, between the Black Sea and the Caspian, and has been at the centre of one of the world’s longest running conflicts.
Russian peacekeepers were sent to the region after thousands of people were reportedly killed in six weeks of fighting between Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the self-declared breakaway region of Artsakh.
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MSN
I’m not a lawyer. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the majority of the Metropolitan’s readers are also not lawyers. And while there are a few exceptions, I know most of my Facebook followers aren’t lawyers.
And yet, there are many people who seem to be so sure of their understanding about how a grand jury works, that they’re willing to take any decision made at face value — as proof of innocence or guilt.
That’s not actually how a grand jury works. In a grand jury hearing, the prosecution (usually only the prosecution) presents evidence in a relaxed setting to the grand jury, who decide whether to issue an indictment — whether there is enough evidence to charge someone with a crime. Since, traditionally, the defense doesn’t get a say, it’s pretty easy to get a grand jury to indict someone in most cases.
In fact, it’s so easy in most cases that a former New York state chief judge, Sol Wachtler, famously remarked that a prosecutor could persuade a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich.”
On a federal level (different than the state level, like in Ferguson, Missouri, where most cases are brought before judges for an indictment rather then grand juries), in 2010 (the last year for which we have statistics), grand juries returned just 11 out of 162,000 violent crime cases without an indictment, according to the FBI’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.
There is one exception, and we saw it frequently in 2014: when a police officer is charged with a crime, a grand jury only rarely returns an indictment.
We saw this in action when a grand jury failed to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for the killing of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, even on a charge of involuntary manslaughter. We saw it in New York, when a grand jury failed to indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo in the choking death of unarmed Eric Garner (an indictment was, however, handed out for the man who videotaped Garner’s death, with about as much difficulty as it would take to indict a ham sandwich).
According to research by Philip Stinson , an assistant professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, only 41 officers in the United States were charged with murder or manslaughter between 2005 and 2011. Total numbers of officer-related shootings are unclear, as the FBI’s report of 2,718 “justified homicides” by officers over the same period is considered a low estimate, as police organizations aren’t required to submit their records to this report.
So why the discrepancy? If it’s so easy to indict for violent crime, why are so few officers indicted?
There’s a few theories. The first is that we’ve trained the public to trust police officers. That trust can be necessary for those officers to do their jobs, but it may be given too blindly: as the military intelligence community put it when I was in the Air Force, “trust, but verify.”
Since, in officer-involved shootings, the events are often the word of a police officer carrying a public trust versus a victim, who are often busy being dead and unable to defend themselves, grand juries may not give as much credence to evidence against police officers than they do to ordinary citizens.
Another possibility is that prosecutors, on whom much of the burden of securing an indictment in a grand jury falls, are naturally reluctant to push for the prosecution of the officers they have to work with, every day, to enforce the law. This isn’t necessarily something that happens consciously, but prosecutorial bias could easily be a factor, especially if combined with juror bias.
Finally, a misunderstanding in the general public of the lower standards of evidence needed to secure indictment, rather than the “beyond reasonable doubt” required for a conviction, could result in confusion on a jury — and certainly does in the court of public opinion.
Is there a way to fix this? Possibly, require a special prosecutor for all grand jury investigations or indictment hearings involving a police officer, to relieve prosecutors of the inherent conflict of interest in attempting to indict their co-workers. Another would be to do away with grand juries altogether, as a majority of the world has done, and bring charges against officers to a full trial, where guilt or innocence can be determined “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Until we fix the problems with indictment in this country, justice won’t be done. Innocence, or guilt, is not determined in a grand jury.
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NPR News: 09-22-2023 2PM EDT
With the ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh falling apart, and no deal between local leaders and the central government in Azerbaijan, the future of Armenians in the region remains precarious.
While the vast majority of Armenian society, the Armenian foreign minister, as well as international observers are gravely concerned for their security, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan says otherwise.
“At this moment, our assessment is that there is no direct threat to the civilian population of Nagorno-Karabakh,” Pashinyan said in a live address on September 21.
In a complete contradiction, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan told a UN Security Council meeting on the same day that “Azerbaijan’s intention is to complete the ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Since March 2021, access to Armenian-administered Nagorno-Karabakh has been tightly controlled by the Russian peacekeepers, making information difficult to verify. But three days after the beginning of Azerbaijan’s 2023 offensive, credible reports are starting to emerge of civilian casualties and war crimes. The prime minister’s statement triggered widespread outrage and led his critics to repeat their accusations of treason.
“I believe the PM was talking to the domestic audience and trying to avoid panic in Armenian society, while fighting against Russian state attempts to weaponize the suffering of the Armenians of Artsakh to bring down democratic governance in Armenia. He failed in doing so and even angered many of his own supporters,” analyst Eric Hacopian told Eurasianet.
The timing of the statement, right before the UN Security Council meeting, couldn’t have come at a worse time, according to human rights attorney Sheila Paylan. “The statement is puzzling, and also obviously untrue.”
“Perhaps in trying to calm people down, the prime minister thought he needed to make that statement,” she told Eurasianet, noting the angry protests on the streets of Yerevan.
As of September 20, the de facto Karabakh authorities were counting 200 people killed and over 400 wounded. The streets of Stepanakert are filled with “displaced people, hungry, scared, and in uncertainty,” said Karabakh Human Rights Ombudsman Gegham Stepanyan.
According to Stepanyan, his office has received more than 600 cases of people missing in the region, as of September 22nd.
“Lack of communication made it almost impossible to find them or find out whether they were killed or not. Residential areas are cut off from each other, people’s fates are unknown,” former Armenian human rights defender Arman Tatoyan said. There have been reports of a bounty of $500 being placed on the head of a particular Karabakhi Armenian woman on an Azerbaijani Telegram channel. She is to be given to a man named “Murad” as a birthday present, the alleged Telegram post reads.
Some Armenians on social media recalled video evidence of atrocities by Azerbaijani troops against female Armenian soldiers during Baku’s incursions into Armenian territory in September 2022.
Against this backdrop, many found the prime minister’s comment about Armenians not being under threat in Karabakh inexplicably tone-deaf.
He did say in the same remarks, however, that his government was prepared to handle an influx of 40,000 families from Karabakh (which should roughly cover the region’s entire population that Armenian sources estimate at 120,000).
So far there has been no sign of Karabakh Armenians leaving through the Lachin corridor, the only route connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. Azerbaijan has been tightly restricting and at times completely closing the corridor in one form or another for the past nine months, resulting in acute shortages of food and supplies.
“It’s not opening anytime soon,” said journalist Shant Khatcherian, who is standing by on the Armenian side of the border alongside other journalists, NGO representatives and Armenians who have relatives in Karabakh.
Meanwhile in Armenia, today marks the fourth straight day of protests. Roads have been blocked and dozens of people have been arrested. While the anger against Russia, the European Union, and other international institutions has been palpable, many Armenians are looking closer to home for someone to blame.
Fin DePencier is a journalist based in Yerevan