At this moment, in front of the Governmental Conference hall, where the National Assembly is holding sessions, the activists of the initiative “We are against foreign-language schools” are holding a protest action. The number of protesters tripled today, Lragir.am reported.
The Armenian parliament opened debates on introduction of amendments to the Law on Language and to the Law on Television and Radio.
As a PanARMENIAN.Net correspondent reported from the scene, Heritage group opposes both bills. “We have submitted our proposals to the government but those were rejected,” group leader Stepan Safaryan said.
The plenary session of the National Assembly started quite interestingly and even funny. The parliament had to continue the discussion on the amendments to the Law on Language which it started yesterday. Before the discussion of the issue, the parliament decided to vote for a few issues. The parliamentarians from the Heritage and ARF factions, which are against foreign-language schools, used this opportunity and in accordance with the rules, before the voting, consecutively asked for 20-minute breaks. The Heritage requested breaks twice and once-ARF Dashnaktsutyun. They tried to kill time with this help of this tactical step and prevent the discussion of the issue on foreign-language schools, Lragir.am reported.
But NA Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan, violating the rules, tried to hinder them and pretended not to notice their requests. So, Hovik Abrahamyan refuted several times their requests on a break. Otherwise, Heritage and Dashnaktsutyun would succeed in failing the discussion in the parliament. Hovik Abrahamyan, in answer to the remark by the Heritage and ARF factions that he breaks the rules, said that he will not let them fail the work of the parliament, they had better “work together”.
In answer to this, ARF faction head Vahan Hovhannisyan said that he does not imagine any party can ever reach that level of schizophrenia to try to hinder the work of the parliament. Vahan Hovhannisyan said that if they intended to hinder it, he would take the rostrum and only police officials could take him off there “moreover, before doing so, a couple of police officials would be injured”, added Vahan Hovhannisyan. After this he asked for another break. Hovik Abrahamyan fulfilled this request but it was the last request possibility. Hence, Heritage and ARF managed only to fail the morning sitting, during the last 5 minutes of which the discussion on the foreign language schools started.
According to ARF Dashnaktsutyun group leader Vahan Hovhannisyan, such vital issues require open public discussions.
Another ARFD representative, chairman of the standing parliamentary committee on foreign relations, Armen Rustamyan slammed the bill on establishment of foreign language schools as “a shame for country.”
“Adopting such a bill we will confess that Armenian schools are incapable of giving a proper education,” he said, adding that foreign language schools will cause a number of problems with Armenian mentality and capability to think in Armenian, PanARMENIAN.Net reported.
One of the Heritage deputies told our correspondent that they do not rule out that ARF and Heritage will use the tactics of prolonging, taking breaks of 20 minutes after each voting. In this way, the parliamentary opposition is trying to prevent the voting not only on the Law on Language but also on the Television and Radio, Lragir.am reported.
/Times.am/
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