Avetik Chalabyan: Civil servants are intimidated and threatened with dismissals in case they join Hayakve

Last week, they resorted to acts of provocation against the
Hayakve initiative. This week, we have mainly recorded cases of intimidation.
Coordinator of the initiative Avetik Chalabyan said this during his press
conference.

“Civil servants are intimidated into not participating
in the signature collection and even into withdrawing their signatures.
Specifically, four civil servants approached the signature collection branch
and requested the withdrawal of their signatures, as they were threatened with
dismissals. This case was recorded,” Chalabyan said.

The coordinator of the initiative noted that the geography
of Hayakve continues to expand. They continue their operation in all
administrative districts of Yerevan, except for those of Nork Marash and
Nubarashen. Operations in these two administrative districts have been
suspended for a few days.

“Last week, we expanded our geography in provinces,
thus having branches in 32 communities at the moment. Moreover, in the past few
weeks, in most of the communities, we carried out our operations not only in
community centers, but also in rural settlements,” Chalabyan said.

According to him, participation rates are sometimes high in
rural settlements. Thus, the general opinion that people there support the
current authorities, has nothing to do with reality.

According to our experience, except for several villages in
the Tavush province, in the rest of the provinces, villages show greater
enthusiasm and greater levels of participation, compared to big towns,”
Chalabyan said.