{"id":542,"date":"2020-05-26T13:05:03","date_gmt":"2020-05-26T13:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nnkgas.gr\/idc\/index.php\/2020\/05\/26\/armenia-health-or-democracy-crisis-en\/"},"modified":"2020-05-26T13:05:03","modified_gmt":"2020-05-26T13:05:03","slug":"armenia-health-or-democracy-crisis-en","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idc-cdi.com\/staging\/armenia-health-or-democracy-crisis-en\/","title":{"rendered":"Armenia: Health or democracy crisis? [EN]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The new coronavirus is an important test for democracies in all over the world. The<br \/>\npandemic has revealed the truth about the Armenian government as well.<br \/>\nAs of May 22, Armenia has reported 5928 infected cases of coronavirus and 74 deaths.<br \/>\nAccording to the Worldometer website, Armenia is the record holder in the region in terms<br \/>\nof the number of infected people registered per 1 million people.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Armenia 1892<\/li>\n<li>Turkey 1823<\/li>\n<li>Iran 1542<\/li>\n<li>Azerbaijan 370<\/li>\n<li>Georgia 181<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Thus, Armenia stays the hardest-hit country in the region with per capita coronavirus cases.<br \/>\nOn May 14, 2020, the Armenian government decided to extend the state of emergency in the<br \/>\nRepublic of Armenia for another 30 days. The state of emergency was initially declared on<br \/>\nMarch 16.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, nearly all restrictions related the spread of the virus were almost<br \/>\ncompletely lifted: the public transport was put into operation, all the shops, public catering<br \/>\nfacilities, gyms, preschools, etc. were opened. In such circumstances, it is clear that the<br \/>\nimposition of a state of emergency pursues absolutely illegitimate goals, one of which is to<br \/>\nban rallies. With this move, the authorities prove that the only way to curb growing public<br \/>\ndiscontent is to restrict people&#8217;s basic rights.<\/p>\n<p>On May 20, dozens of young people were detained by the RA Police without real legal<br \/>\njustification, as well as members of the RPA Youth organization, including YRPA (Youth of<br \/>\nthe Republican Party of Armenia) Chairman Hayk Mamijanyan, together with the<br \/>\nrepresentatives of other organizations.<\/p>\n<p>Taking advantage of the state of emergency, the authorities are not really fighting against the<br \/>\nvirus, but against the opposition, trying to suppress the growing public discontent and<br \/>\ndissent. Failing to fight the coronavirus, the government is taking action against hundreds of<br \/>\nthousands of disgruntled citizens, unjustifiably restricting their fundamental freedoms and<br \/>\nrights.<\/p>\n<p>The oppositional Republican Party of Armenia that has expressed its solidarity in the first<br \/>\ndays of pandemic and has presented a number of suggestions to fight against it, which were<br \/>\nneglected, is still facing a political persecution. The Republicans strictly condemn the<br \/>\npractice of undermining democracy in Armenia and require the government to eliminate<br \/>\nunjustified and disproportionate restrictions on human rights and freedoms. The party urges<br \/>\nthe authorities to take urgent and effective measures to improve the social situation of<br \/>\nhundreds of thousands of Armenian citizens, as well as to actually and effectively fight for<br \/>\npeople\u2019s health.<\/p>\n<p>The attention of the international community should be focused on the deepening<br \/>\nmanifestations of authoritarian populism in the country. Moreover, allowing populist<br \/>\ngovernments to use the health crisis as a political tool in their hands will become a huge<br \/>\ncrisis for democracy.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Lilit Beglaryan, MBA<\/p>\n<p>Deputy Chairman &#8211; Democrat Youth Community of Europe (DEMYC)<\/p>\n<p>YRPA International Secretary<br \/>\nExpert, Luys Foundation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The new coronavirus is an important test for democracies in all over the world. The pandemic has revealed the truth about the Armenian government as well. As of May 22, Armenia has reported 5928 infected cases of coronavirus and 74 deaths. According to the Worldometer website, Armenia is the record holder in the region in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-ct"],"acf":{"pdf_url":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/idc-cdi.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/idc-cdi.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/idc-cdi.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idc-cdi.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idc-cdi.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/idc-cdi.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idc-cdi.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/idc-cdi.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idc-cdi.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idc-cdi.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}