President of the “Lex” bar association, member of the barrister group of the Armenian Association of Russia Simon Tsaturyan hosted a press conference last week before his departure to remind journalists that in any case, there are people “taking care” of Armenians in Russia. As proof of that, he showed the thank-you notes that the mothers of the dead sons sent to leader of the Armenian Association of Russia Ara Abrahamyan. With those notes, the mothers are thanking Ara Abrahamyan for all that he has done. But what has the Armenian Association leader really done? Perhaps he has provided financial aid to the families of the murdered young people. The recent press conferences hosted by the representatives of the Armenian Association of Russia have turned into a kind of tradition and they are becoming more and more ridiculous because they come to Armenia to spread the good word and say that the scandalous murders are not aimed directly at Armenians. Lawyer S. Tsaturyan was going along with this logic when he tried to convince Armenians that the skinheads kill with a strange magnetic force and that ill-fated force guides them to the blacks who look like Slovenians. Head of the Journalists’ Association Astghik Gevorgyan had a rather firm role on this.
“We don’t care at all whether the number of Armenians murdered is less than the number of Azerbaijani or Kyrgyz murdered. We care about our people. It’s not our Armenian compatriots’ fault that they are currently in Russia; they went there to earn a living and support their families. Most of them are citizens of Russia, which means that Russia should be responsible for its citizens. Just like Armenia should stand up for the protection of its citizens. The issue must raised to the state level,” she said, adding that the Journalists’ Association isn’t satisfied with the arguments brought up.
Russian authorities are not inclined to call the recent murders interracial murders because, for example, by calling it interracial many foreign students refuse to study in Moscow. Mr. Tsaturyan called the murders against Armenians in Russia an illness and his diagnosis for the illness was chauvinism. However, the lawyer can’t prescribe a medicine for the diagnosed illness. Moscow-based lawyer Simon Tsaturyan continues to take part in the investigating the murders of Vigen Abrahamyants, Arthur Sardaryan and Narek Kocharyan. Defining Narek Kocharyan’s murder as a murder based on interracial grounds, the lawyer said that the police interpreted the motives for the murder differently.
“They’re trying to change it around, but we’re doing our best to counteract that. We’ve been to the prosecutor’s office and the local branch of state security. During our meeting with the public prosecutors, we complained about the article by which they had brought up a criminal case. The article was about causing major physical pain, which led to death. Their definition was wrong from the start because it was clear to see that there were many stabs on the agonized young man,” assured S. Tsaturyan, saying that for similar cases, there is one article and that is murder committed by group; what’s more, the murder was cruel.
“We faced bureaucracy, bans, which try to create an image that there were no interracial grounds for the murders. That was what happened for the case of V. Abrahamyants, when they tried to define the crime as an everyday crime; that was also what happened with the murder case of Arthur Sardaryan,” said S. Tsaturyan. He ensured that the police had the opportunity to reveal the crimes with their evidence, but didn’t. The murders took place in public, at daytime and there were witnesses. According to Mr. Tsaturyan, they work in very hard conditions because while they pull the “rope” to the interracial grounds, the police define those murders as everyday crimes.
Vigen Abrahamyants’ murder has been revealed and it turned out that the murderers were the same criminals responsible for the Cherkizyan market explosion in Moscow. “At the present, we are instituting legal proceedings on that as well because the same people have committed those crimes. A Vigen Abrahamyants was killed by a 17-year old boy, who was studying in a military college and whose father was a high-ranked Internal Affairs officer. A person who was supposed to protect the lives of others turned into a maniac and a chauvinist criminal. I have announced that a professional murdered V. Abrahamyants, someone who had been trained. Those chauvinists learn, they have calculations for spreading fear not only among Armenians, but also in their society,” he said, adding that witnesses haven’t interfered during the murders because they were scared. Tsaturyan recalled the murder of Vache Tovmasyan and a group of boys from Artik of the Gyumri city of Armenia in a train. Nobody had interfered and the criminals had managed to break loose.
V. Abrahamyants and A. Sardaryan were both 17 years old and were refugees from Baku. After the events in Baku, they escaped Baku and managed to stay alive, but they weren’t able to stay away from the stabs of the Russian chauvinists. With that said, based on Tsaturyan’s information, this year V. Abrahamyants, A. Sardaryan and N. Kocharyan have been murdered on interracial grounds.
“There is no basis to predict that the murders are against Armenians. We have no evidence claiming that the criminals have come, checked to make sure the person is Armenian and then committed the murder. The only thing that motivates them is skin color. There are no attacks aimed towards Armenians,” said Tsaturyan, assuring that during the searches on the criminals, they find literature and symbols.
“For example, recently they had barged into a Synagogue nad killed 8 people. Now, can the Jews say that it was against the Jews?” asked the lawyer.
Of course, this is against the Jews. It’s not against Africans, is it?