Thousands of Artsakh Armenians, who were forcibly displaced by Azerbaijan and essentially find themselves in exile in Armenia, gathered at Yerevan’s Liberty Square on Sunday for a massive rally to protest the Armenian government’s discriminatory policies against Artsakh natives.
The protesters demanded that the Armenian government champion their right to return to their homeland on the international stage and continue the housing allowances that were put in place when they were forced to leave Artsakh after Azerbaijan’s attack in September 2023.
The government had signaled that it will cut the program, but Artsakh Armenians living in Armenia find the cuts will lead to massive losses.
The rally organizers presented a multi-point set of demands and gave the government one week to meet these demands or face more street protests. They also pitched a tent and began a non-stop sit in.
One of the key demands from protesters is for Armenia’s leadership to take “all possible legal, political and diplomatic steps to ensure the collective return of the people of Artsakh to their homeland where they can live a safe, dignified, stable and self-determined life.”
Another important demand from the Artsakh protesters is for the government to scrap its decision to stop paying housing allowances to many refugees and significantly reduce them for others.
But the most searing reality is that the Artsakh Armenians feel discriminated against as they attempt to rebuild their lives in virtual exile.
The protesters accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his political team of spreading hate speech against the Artsakh Armenians and demanded an end to the alleged discrimination. They said the authorities in Yerevan must also reinstate all Artsakh Armenians as Armenian citizens.
Following the forced displacement of Artsakh Armenians in 2023, the Armenian government reversed a decades-long practice of granting Artsakh residents Armenian citizenship. At the time many accused the Pashinyan regime of political motivations in making this decision.
“If the authorities take no action to keep this segment of the Armenians in Armenia and strengthen Armenia, the course of this struggle will definitely be unpredictable,” one of the speakers at the protest warned.
“If they don’t solve our socioeconomic problems and our women and children are left on the street, this struggle will become a political struggle, whether they like it or not,” he added.
Artsakh’s former state minister and human rights defender, Artak Beglaryan, echoed these sentiments, calling some of the institutionalized steps being taken by Armenia’s authorities as divisive and a threat to Armenia.
“Of course, the ultimate political goal for us is our collective return, but before that, we want the people of Artsakh to live here in the Republic of Armenia, and for that we must have adequate, dignified conditions,” Beglaryan said at the protest, demanding that the government reinstate the housing allowances.
He warned that the absence of such accommodations will create a new socio-economic crisis in Armenia, leading to increased emigration from Armenia.
“Nikol Pashinyan has repeatedly stated that the Artsakh issue is closed, there is no Artsakh movement, there is no issue of the return of the Artsakh people on the agenda of the Armenian authorities, and if we have community settlement, we will preserve our identity more easily and will more easily fight for our collective rights,” Beglaryan explained.
He said that is why the government has opted to disperse the Artsakh residents, instead of placing them in one central location.
“I think the hate propaganda is also intentional,” Beglaryan insisted. “We see that from the lips of various government deputies, even from the Prime Minister. The people of Artsakh or values that are very important to the people of Artsakh are often directly or indirectly targeted, which generates hate propaganda.”
