Hayastan Hakobian, who has worked at the state college in the town of Armavir for over 30 years, announced her dismissal on Monday, saying that she lost her job “due to my political views.” She said on Tuesday that she will challenge its legality in court.
“The college director carried out a [political] order,” Hakobian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
The director, Jemma Sargsian, denied that. She said she fired Hakobian because during the election campaign the latter took a leave of absence but still visited the college, talked to students and made “some statements that may have been motivated by [political] propaganda considerations.”
Hakobian brushed aside the claim. She said she submitted last week a written explanation insisting that she never used her position to campaign for the opposition bloc led by billionaire Samvel Karapetian.
Another college lecturer, who is affiliated with the ruling Civil Contract party, avoided dismissal despite finding herself in hot water during the election campaign. An opposition party publicized Lusine Grigorian’s voice message to her students seemingly ordering them to attend Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s campaign rally in Armavir in breach of Armenian law.
An Armenian law-enforcement agency launched a criminal investigation into the audio. The college director claimed on Tuesday that Grigorian told the students to show up for an open-air concert, rather than Pashinian’s rally.
She at the same time said: “That audio is now being investigated by competent bodies and the case is not yet closed. So let the competent bodies investigate the case and draw their conclusions.”
Lilit Ghazarian, deputy head of the Centre for Drug and Medical Technology Expertise.
No government official or public sector employee is known to have been sacked or prosecuted for abusing their powers in the ruling party’s favor. According to the Armenian opposition and independent media, such abuses were widespread during the election campaign. By contrast, quite a few individuals holding managerial positions in the public sector have reportedly been told to resign or sacked in recent months because of being related to oppositionists or critical of the government.
They include Lilit Ghazarian, the sister of another Strong Armenia member who ran for the parliament. Ghazarian was sacked last week as deputy head of the Armenian government’s drug regulatory agency, a position she held for 22 years.
She said the head of the agency, Arayik Baghrian, told her to resign for “known reasons” the day after the June 7 elections. She said she refused before being notified that her position has been abolished.
Ghazarian claimed that Baghrian’s “illegal” decision to lay her off was ordered by Health Minister Anahit Avanesian, who is also a senior member of Pashinian’s party. Avanesian again denied that on Monday.
The Yerevan daily Hraparak reported last Friday that the director of a rural kindergarten in the southern Ararat province married to an opposition party member is being pressured by the provincial administration to step down. Earlier in June, a local government employee in another Armenian village claimed to have been forced to resign after dismissing as misleading the official election results in her community.
