The municipality of Yerevan has one more time rejected the opposition’s application to organize a rally.
For the first time the city administration office rejected the application on June 12 with the substantiation that there would be an event entitled “small Yerevan” in the Liberty square. The second refusal was substantiated with the fact that the police had information that a group of people were going to provoke mass disorders. According to the first application the opposition wanted to organize the event in the Liberty square, but the second application offered an alternative to organize the rally in the place nearby the Matenadaran. It is a strange coincidence that the police has information that a group of people are planning to provoke disorders in those two places.
Yesterday the administrative court of Yerevan held a session to discuss the claim of the opposition against the decision of the city administration office to refuse the application. According to the law on rallies, demonstrations and public assemblies, the court shall make a decision on this claim within 24 hours. The movement headquarter submitted the claim to the court at 11:25 a.m. yesterday. After the court session judge Ruzan Hakobyan decided to publish the decision of the court not after the session, but today at 10a.m. The opposition representatives say that even if the court decides not to cancel the decision of the municipality to reject the application, they will organize the rally on June 20 anyway. L. Zurabyan says that the court has no grounds to reject their claim. “If the judge is fair, serves for justice, then she shall satisfy our claim to cancel the decision of the city administration office not to allow us organize a rally in the square. And if she does not satisfy our appeal… Tell you frankly I don’t want to press on the court, I will speak about the court’s decision,” said Mr. Zurabyan. During the court session representative of the city administration office Gagik Azaryan asked the court to reject the application because on June 5 the municipality issued an order to organize an event in the square. Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s lawyer Ruben Sanoyan referred to the 13th article of the law on rallies, demonstrations and public assemblies and said that the municipality did not have the right to reject the opposition’s application because they hadn’t informed about the event to take place on June 20. G. Azaryan also approved the fact that the municipality had not informed about the event. The latter said that the municipality cannot inform itself and showed the letter of the police chief that the police has operative information that some people were planning to provoke disorders in the square that day. Ruben Sanoyan had to refer to the 13th article of the above mentioned law for several times. “The law doesn’t leave any gaps for different interpretations,” said Mr. Sinoyan. The law clearly writes that applications to organize rallies can be rejected if the responsible body has informed about the mentioned event despite the date when that decision was made. It turns out that the decision of the Yerevan administration office as of June 5 has more power than the law and it can abide the law and make its decisions. It is not also excluded that the city administration office might have prepared that order on organizing the mentioned event with a back date. What if the court doesn’t satisfy the opposition’s application? “Even if they reject, the rally will take place anyway,” said L. Zurabyan.
The other representatives of the opposition are decisive as well. “Even the government representatives confess that our freedom was born in the square. The government is trying to hide from the citizens behind the children and the event, which is immoral. It has become a tradition: when the opposition is trying to organize something the government is forming some documents with back dates and trying to organize other things to prevent our activities. If they are refusing to allow the rally take place in the territory near the Matenadaran, it means that they don’t want to negotiate by civilized methods to find a solution out of this situation. In such case definitely we will organize our rally in the Liberty square,” said member of the Republic party board Suren Surenyants.