Azerbaijan withdrew its athletes from the European Weightlifting Championships held in Yerevan after the flag of Azerbaijan was burned during the competition opening ceremony on April 14. Shortly afterward, the public act of vandalism committed by Aram Nikolyan, an employee of the public TV channel of Armenia, was supported by the pro-Russian lobby of Armenia, RBC-Ukraine reports.
With reference to the Ukrainian source, IPN reports that Eduard Sharmazanov, a member of the executive body of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), said that Nikolyan was “an Armenian with dignity”. On April 16, the same politician stated that Nikolyan’s deed resonates with the collective will of the Armenians.
The act of vandalism was also supported by the deputy chairman of the RPA Armen Ashotyan, MP Gegham Manukyan, of the pro-Russian parliamentary group “Hayastan”, the dean of the Faculty of Oriental Studies of the Yerevan State University, who in the elections of 2021 ran on behalf of the Bloc “Hayastan” Ruben Melkonyan, former pro-Russian MP Arman Abovyan. They leveled criticism at some of the Western-leaning Armenian politicians who condemned the burning of the flag of Azerbaijan.
After the employee of the Armenian public television was arrested, his interests were represented by lawyer Alexander Kochubaev. It is noteworthy that this also represented the leader of the Hayastan Bloc Robert Kocharyan in a trial against the Yerevan City Hall in 2019. “Kocharyan is the only influential politician in Armenia, who has a personal relationship with Putin, which he publicly described as “very sincere, open, direct… We felt a kind of chemistry between us”.
In a month of the start of the large-scale aggression against Ukraine, the Hayastan Bloc led by Kocharyan condemned “the scandalous manifestations of the anti-Russian feelings in some of the countries.”
The representatives of the Hayastan Bloc also supported Nikolyan, who set the Azerbaijani flag on fire. Moreover, MP of the Hayastan group Kristine Vardanyan was the only official among those who welcomed him after he was dismissed.
The burning of the flag of Azerbaijan, which was supported by the pro-Russian forces in Yerevan, took place amidst a campaign to burn the flag of the U.S., which has been staged in different countries the past five months by representatives of the left-wing and pro-Iranian organizations that support Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
According to RBC-Ukraine, the flag burning campaign was launched in Thessaloniki on November 17 by activists of the Communist Party of Greece. Earlier, representatives of this party protested against “the reactionary government in Kyiv and the fascist groups in Ukraine”. On January 3, members of the pro-Iranian Islamic Movement in Nigeria burned the U.S. flag in Abuja. On February 2, activists of the left-wing Philippine organization Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) took over. On April 11, the Philippine representatives of the BAYAN staged a similar event and on April 14, when the Azerbaijani flag was burned in Yerevan, supporters of the ruling regime burned the flag of the United States in Teheran.
On April 15, the European Weightlifting Federation (EWF) issued a statement by which it condemned the burning of the flag of Azerbaijan in Yerevan.
“EWF considers this extremely serious and regrettable gesture an attack on the integrity of sporting values and the universal principles of Fair Play,” it noted.
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