Alen Simonyan's words anger relatives of captured soldiers

A video has appeared on the Internet, in which Alen Simonyan, the Speaker of the Armenian Parliament, discusses the fate of the Armenian prisoners of war (POWs). According to his version, many of the POWs are deserters, and the future of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh is much more important. Relatives of POWs and missing servicemen have come to the government building and blocked roads in protest.

On December 7, a video filmed with a hidden camera appeared on the Web, in which Alen Simonyan stated that "the militaries' duty is to defend their Motherland." "Forgive me, maybe I'll say some bad things, but for me these POWs no longer exist. Do you know who these POWs are? These are the people who laid down their arms, fled, lost their way, and were taken POWs," Speaker Simonyan has stated.

In the evening of December 7, relatives of POWs and missing servicemen in the Karabakh war blocked Tigran Mets and Amiryan Streets near the government building and in Republic Square. In this way they expressed their protest against Mr Simonyan's statement about POWs.

Arsen Gasparyan, a protester, has condemned Alen Simonyan's statement.

"For a year and two months now, my son has been considered missing; and the Parliament Speaker asserts that this topic is closed for him. Our children gave the most precious thing for their homeland, but some people who hadn't served themselves treat them as deserters," Mr Gasparyan told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on December 8, 2021 at 02:12 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.