A radical opposition group on Friday urged Diaspora Armenians to travel to Armenia later this month and join its campaign of nonstop street protests aimed at ousting President Serzh Sarkisian.
The Founding Parliament movement plans to launch the campaign on the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey to be officially marked on April 24.
The timing has been condemned by Sarkisian’s political allies and some mainstream opposition parties represented in parliament. They say that the planned rallies could overshadow the high-profile commemorations of the genocide centenary that will be attended by many foreign dignitaries.
“I want to stress that we will take no steps that could interfere with the events of that day. We will only gather to start the practical phase of our struggle,” Zhirayr Sefilian, the Founding Parliament’s Lebanese-born leader, said in a written appeal to the worldwide Armenian Diaspora.
Sefilian said that regime change is imperative because of the “disastrous” state of affairs in Armenia. “On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide we are being subjected to a white genocide,” he charged in reference to the Sarkisian administration’s socioeconomic policies.
Sefilian said ethnic Armenians from around the world should therefore converge on Yerevan on April 24 and join their “sisters and brothers” there in forcing the government into resignation.
Samvel Farmanian, a parliament deputy from Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia, dismissed the appeal, saying that the Founding Parliament will fail to attract a large Diaspora following. Farmanian also argued that foreign nationals are not legally allowed to participate in the country’s political processes.
The Founding Parliament, which has so far failed to attract large crowds to its rallies, initially planned to begin the campaign in downtown Yerevan’s Liberty Square. However, the municipal authorities have refused to sanction the protests, citing the genocide centenary commemorations and offering the opposition group to rally supporters in the city’s southern Erebuni suburb instead.
Sefilian and his associates have accepted the offer but said they want to occupy Liberty Square on April 26, something which has also been refused by the municipality.