The NA delegation takes part in the PACE session going on in Strasbourg, which leads the Vice President of the Parliament, the Head of the RA NA delegation to PACE Ruben Rubinyan.
The member of the delegation Hripsime Grigoryan noted in her speech, handed by the Press office of Armenian Parliament:
“When we discuss violence and hate speech against politicians, we are not discussing the fragility of individual egos. We are discussing the fragility of democracy itself. The report before us is right: when a politician is attacked because of his or her public role, democracy is attacked as well.
In Armenia, we know this not in theory, but in experience. On the night of 9 November 2020, then Speaker of Parliament Ararat Mirzoyan was violently assaulted during the post-war riots and seriously injured. In February 2021, an opposition rally in front of our parliament staged a performance titled “The execution of Ceaușescu or Death to Traitors” - a grotesque political spectacle that pushed public discourse even further toward dehumanisation. On 24 April 2024, at Tsitsernakaberd, during the Armenian Genocide commemoration, Anna Hakobyan and the Prime Minister’s youngest daughter, Arpi - then eight years old - were met with offensive chants. These are not isolated episodes. They are warning signs. And the threat does not end in the street. It continues online - daily, relentlessly, often anonymously. In Armenia, as elsewhere, women in public life are especially exposed. A 2024 Council of Europe report on Armenia points to significant legal and institutional gaps in responding to digital violence against women.
Violence and hate speech poison democracy in at least three ways. First, they radicalise society: political opponents are no longer seen as competitors, but as enemies. Second, they silence voices: Third, and perhaps most dangerously, they teach citizens - especially the young - that politics is a dirty arena of humiliation, fear, and hatred. The long-term result is not only extremism. It is also apathy.
That is why this report matters. We need to understand a political culture in which disagreement remains sharp, yet human dignity remains inviolable.
Violence has no place in democracy. If we allow hatred to become the language of politics, democracy will eventually forget how to speak at all.
