Armenian blogs discussed Iran again this week, alongside the general amnesty declared by the Armenian parliament that set free a number of jailed oppositionists ahead of the PACE session. The car-crash of two key actors from highly popular “Vorogayt” show and the death of pop-superstar Michael Jackson attracted much attention, while social networks were lively with discussions about protests staged by nationalists during the visit of Georgia’s president Mikhail Sahakashvili.
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Iranian-Armenian journalist and blogger Artin Arakelian posted photos of protests taking place in Iran at the start of the week with the comments[AM]: “Tehran has no rest for over a week now. Supporters of candidate Mir Hoseyn Musavi keep the whole city under their discretion. It’s impossible to predict what will happen next. We will have to wait and see how things develop.”
Having extensively covered the developments in Iran since the start of the protests, Kornelij Glas writes[RU]: “I think this struggle has gone into the phase of pointlessness. Musavi or Rafsanjani have no capacity of undertaking radical steps, as they are also a part of the system.”
Pigh, who has travelled to the south of Armenia on a business trip, has met with 12 Iranian truck drivers.
“10 of those 12 were supporters of Ahmadi,” the blogger writes. “3 of them were Azerbaijanis and spoke pretty good Armenian. Much to my surprise, they had also voted for Ahmadi. It turns out they don’t like Rafsanjani there at all, nor do they like the United States. Musavi is not taken as a political figure and is mostly viewed as an attachment to Rafsanjani.”
Infernoarm turns to local politics [RU]. Speaking of the general amnesty declared in the country, the blogger comments on the release of most jailed oppositionists: “Looks like they’re releasing everyone except for two – Sasun Mikayelian and Harutyun Urutian. As I don’t believe in the work of Serzhe’s [meaning president Serzh Sargsian] heart and mind, I’d speculate, that they’re just doing this because of being pressured heard.”
On the same issue, opposition activist Bekaisa writes “We are all imprisoned until all are free ! Freedom to everyone ! We gonna fight till each single political prisoner will be released !!!!”
“The general amnesty is good for election fraudsters too,” Reporter_Arm reports[AM] “Two of them were convicted on June 16th, and thanks to the amnesty, they were already released. Today, one more of them was convicted and released as well.”
“Kapan, like the rest of Armenia, discusses the death of two key actors from “Vorogait” show,” writing back from the south, Pigh says.
Meanwhile, there is a wealth of photos and short comments about the death of pop-superstar Michael Jackson. Most bloggers limit themselves to a short “RIP”, although there are occasionally posts stressing claims of Jackson’s pedophilia.
Rubywedge recalls an old newspaper article, about how Jackson planned to live for 150 years and was sleeping in a special oxygen barocamera.
Another topic that received much of Armenian bloggers’ criticism over the past 7 days was the decision by member of Armenian parliamentary delegation to PACE, representative of opposition party “Zharangutyun” Zarouhi Postanjian to enlist the backing of Azerbaijani and Turkish colleagues for her calls for the Council of Europe to demand the release of all Armenian opposition members remaining in prison.
Kornelij Glas comments on this: “It’s bad for Azerbaijanis, because they’ve signed under a call to free heroes of Karabakh war. It’s bad for Armenians, because the document looses its strength and becomes grotesque, and the signature of Azerbaijanis turns it into a politically biased statement.”
The scoop before the weekend was the breaking by police forces of the attempts staged in support of Armenians living in Georgian region of Javakheti during the Georgian president Mikhail Sahakashvili’s visit to Armenia.
Facebook and Twitter users actively circulated a YouTube video showing Giro Manoian, a top leader from Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) party arguing with the police. The irony noted mostly by the supporters of the main opposition – Armenian National Congress, lies in the fact, that not long ago Dashnaktsutyun was part of the coalition government.
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