Yerevan /Mediamax/. Armenia’s second President’s office came up with a statement on failure of Robert Kocharyan’s news conference today.

The statement reads:

“Today the news conference of Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan was supposed to be held at 12pm, Erebuni Plaza Business Center. All media resources in the country were invited to the event. Robert Kocharyan was going to make important political statements during the conference, as well as answer to many questions. Nevertheless, a group of people, known as pro-government activists and allies of Nikol Pashinyan, didn’t allow the news conference to take place and staged a cheap show in front of cameras, speaking on behalf of “anxious people”.

What happened is essentially a desperate and rude attempt to violate the right of the political opposition to freely communicate with people with the help of media. This is a rough pressure on expressing dissent, and as one of popular politicians has recently said “an ideological terror”. Today’s incident showed the growing number of concerns in politics and society about the intolerance of the authorities towards dissent and their readiness to execute political persecutions against the opposition. This applies especially to those, whose political weight and prospects cause serious worries among them.”