Electric Archives

Today marks two years since Electric Yerevan protests

June 23, 2017 by administrator

Today marks the second anniversary of Electric Yerevan, the crowdiest social rebellion in Armenia’s history since the independence period.

For exactly a fortnight, Armenia’s capital, particularly Baghramyan avenue (which was the site of the protest), was under the spotlijght of leading local but also international media outlet.

The civic campaign also attracted axtive social media users of different ages and genders, uniting them in the protests against the public regulator’s decision to raise the electricity tariffs.

Early in the morning on June 23, the police used water cannons to dispel the young people from the scene. The protest gained a greater momentum after 237 activists were taken to police precincts for interrogation.

The police violence against peaceful protests took even larger crowds to the streets to express their support to the justified demand.

Electric Yerevan was a very important movemnet in the transitional period regardless of its outcome, says Narek Sargsyan, an active participant of the protests.

“Despite of our will, it rose to public prominence as an accomplished fact and a reality we weren’t sadly ready for to properly overcome the challenges. Unfortunately, though, I did not have a great influence on the decision-making to make the process more professionally-oriented so to speak. We met also people who pursued their own interests and who, by the way, had nothing to do with the group which had launched the campaign,” he added.

As a positive outcome, the activist cited President Serzh Sargsyan’s move to suspend the Public Services Regulatory Commission’s decision.

The two weeks of public protests saw the disobedience campaign develop into a well-organized civic movement. Volunteer groups with medical education were at the protest site to provide aid to those beaten in clashes with the police. The organizers had even created a small library; many others had joined the crowd to supply them with food and drink.

Celebrities too, headed to the protest site with family members, including even newborns.

The crowd in Yerevan’s central avenue celebrated three weddings over the period.

“The western culture seemed to be gaining ground at first sight, but it wasn’t eventually perceived and accepted,” Samsonyan added.

A month after the public protests, the National Assembly passed a billl to mitigate the tariffs. The measure offered, particularly, subsidies to the small- and medium-sized enterprises spending monthly up to 250 kilowatts of electric power.

China’s electric cars sales to double in 2016: minister

March 13, 2016 by administrator

China’s production and sale of electric cars will more than double this year, Reuters reports quoting the industry minister as saying on Sunday.

More than 300,000 electric cars were sold in China last year, Miao Wei, the head of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology told reporters on the sidelines of the annual meeting of parliament on Sunday.

The reliability, mileage and lifespan of electric batteries need improvement and China needs to speed up the installation of electric car charging stations, Miao said.

Armenia: Baghramyan Blvd Breakup: Police clear Electric protest site in central Yerevan

September 12, 2015 by administrator

Armenian police used force on Saturday morning to push scores of demonstrators out of a central avenue that remained blocked for hours in protest against a recent electricity price hike.

Hundreds of protesters, most of them young people, had occupied a section of the Marshal Baghramyan Avenue leading to the presidential palace on September 11 evening after their leaders accused the government of not fulfilling its pledge to fully subsidize the rise in electricity tariffs.

No To Plunder, a civic group that organized the protest, demanded that the authorities revoke the decision on the 16-percent rate increase that the government approved in June, threatening a repeat of nonstop protests that took place in Baghramyan Avenue in late June and early July.

After repeated warnings that the protest was “unlawful”, police officers gave the demonstrators until 5 am to unblock the venue voluntarily or face action.

Half an hour after the expiry of the “deadline” police launched their operation, breaking up the line of about 50 protesters who did not actively resist. The police, who did not use batons, water cannons or other riot gear in their action, rounded up the demonstrators, pushing them to the sides of the avenue. In an operation that lasted for about 20 minutes all demonstrators were removed from the avenue section. More than a dozen protesters were taken to police stations. By 6 am traffic in Baghramyan Avenue was restored.

It remained unclear on Saturday morning whether activists of No To Plunder and other civic groups campaigning against the rise in electricity prices planned any more protests during the day. Earlier, their leaders said they would stage street protests until their demands were met by the administration of President Serzh Sargsyan.

Source: Armenianow.am

Electricity Price Hike Protests Result in Arrests, Clashes with Police

September 2, 2015 by administrator

YEREVAN—As has been promised for weeks, the “No to Plunder” movement, which mobilized tens of thousands of Armenians in June to stage a two-week sit-in at Baghramyan Avenue, staged another protest on Tuesday, which began at Lover’s Park and moved to Republic Square.

At Republic Square the group of protesters were met by another group of protesters from the “Rise Up Armenia” group and proceeded to march toward the presidential palace on Baghramyan Avenue.

Protesters clashed with police as several members of the “No to Plunder” movement were arrested and were released within hours and returned to the protests.

There, the organizers, once again outlined their demands, specifically urging President Serzh Sarkisian to honor his pledge of the government subsidizing the electricity price hike until the results of a scheduled audit are announced.

‘Electric Yerevan’ Organizers To Resume Street Protests

August 29, 2015 by administrator

Leaders of the No To Plunder movement at a press conference in Yerevan on August 28, 2015 (Source: Photolur)

YEREVAN (RFE/RL)—No To Plunder, the Armenian youth group that was behind the recent “Electric Yerevan” protests, said on Friday that it will resume its campaign of “civil disobedience” next week, accusing the government of reneging on a pledge to subsidize energy prices.

Leaders of No To Plunder said that while the tariffs remain unchanged for households for now, Armenian businesses are being forced to pay more for electricity used by them. According to No To Plunder, this runs counter to President Serzh Sarkissian’s assurance that the government would “shoulder the whole burden” of the more than 17 percent price hike, pending the findings of an emergency audit of Armenia’s national power utility.

Sarkissian made the statement on June 28 at the height of non-stop protests on a central Yerevan avenue that were organized by No To Plunder, and attended by thousands of mostly young people. No To Plunder was pushed aside by other, more radical activists after urging the protesters to unblock Marshal Bagramian Avenue because of the concessions announced by Sarkissian.

“He said nothing about not subsidizing small and medium-sized businesses,” argued Artush Chibukhchian, one of the group’s leaders.

“Serzh Sarkissian has fooled the people and we must respond to that on the street,” Chibukchian charged at a news conference. “Serzh Sarkissian wants to make electricity more expensive. He doesn’t want to solve this problem.”

“We are resuming the street struggle,” he said. “We have had a chance to see that issues are solved on the street. They [the authorities] won’t do anything unless you put pressure on them.”

Mihran Avagian, another No To Plunder leader, announced that the youth movement will resume its street protests on September 1. But neither he nor Chibukhchian disclosed details of the planned actions. They said only that the group might again occupy Marshal Bagramian Avenue leading to the presidential administration building.

Meanwhile, it remains unclear as to who will conduct the promised audit of the Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA), the loss-making utility owned by the Russian company Inter RAO, or when. The Armenian government has so far only commissioned a U.S. consulting firm, Deloitte, to investigate and conclude whether the price hike sanctioned by Armenian state regulators in early June was justified.

Observers believe that the energy tariff for households will not rise at least until a referendum on constitutional changes takes place, which they see as vital for President Sarkissian’s political future. The referendum is expected to take place in November.

Yerevan Electric: The Washington Post: Who lost and who won after protests in Armenia?

July 26, 2015 by administrator

By Zhanna Andreasyan and Georgi Derluguian Report Washington Post

(Davit Abrahamyan/PAN Photo via AP)

Early on Saturday, June 27, 2015, dancing and singing demonstrators protesting a hike in electricity prices blocked the Armenian capital’s main avenue Friday for a fifth straight day. (Davit Abrahamyan/PAN Photo via AP)

Armenia, a small traditionally pro-Russian former Soviet republic, has just experienced a spectacular eruption of mass protests. On the surface, it was against a fairly minor increase in electricity rates. In Moscow, however, conservative journalists sounded alarms, alleging that America was attempting another “regime change” in Russia’s underbelly.

Sociology might offer a less conspiratorial explanation. Big protest movements often appear to be so sudden and spontaneous because they build upon citizens’ prior “micro-mobilizations” around local issues, which took place below the mainstream media’s radar screen. The events in Armenia followed this dynamic.

On June 17, the Armenian government approved a 16.9 percent increase in electricity prices. The next day, a few hundred young people staged a sit-in near Yerevan’s opera house, the traditional site of popular protests since the days of perestroika in the late 1980s. It was widely rumored that the price increase was only to cover up waste and corruption. Their slogan was as emotional as it was vague: No to Robbery!

The original protest seemed easily ignored, so in the evening of June 22, the protesters occupied Marshal Baghramyan Avenue, Yerevan’s main thoroughfare, where both the parliament and presidential palace are located. Monumental traffic jams ensured that Yerevan’s citizens felt this immediately. Curiously, a majority of Yerevantsis did not seem to mind the inconvenience.

Early on June 23, the Armenian police — claiming that they were clearing the obstacles to city traffic — dispersed the demonstrators with water cannons and briefly detained 237 of them.

At this news, Yerevan seemed to explode. Much as had happened in Kiev’s Euromaidan in November 2013, police action provoked a blowback. Now thousands flocked into Baghramyan, including the local media and sports celebrities merrily posing for pictures and taking selfies. Only a couple months earlier, and virtually on the same spot, the Armenian American pop personality Kim Kardashian had been picturing herself during her tour of the ancestral homeland to commemorate the victims of the 1915 Turkish genocide.

The Armenian history of victimhood matters in the classical sense of Durkheimian theory: External conflict fosters cohesion within social groups. Extraordinary conflict, like the memories of genocidal extermination, fosters extraordinary cohesion. This helps explain why, after the first clash had backfired so badly, Armenian authorities carefully avoided using force against fellow Armenians. The protest movement thus obtained its window of political opportunity.

In the following weeks, the protesters stayed behind the barricades of chained trashcans while the police patiently stood in phalanx behind their shields a few paces away. To relieve the psychological tension and plain boredom of protracted face-off, the crowd kept on dancing, waving Armenian flags, making impromptu speeches almost round the clock. All this was broadcast live by Web-based TV channels. For the duration, the safety and fun reigning on Baghramyan Avenue seemed to make it less a protest rally than a popular destination for Yerevantsis’ evening promenades.

ARMENIA Seven police officers subject to disciplinary measures to police brutality in Yerevan

July 14, 2015 by administrator

Police authorities in Yerevan have submitted to disciplinary action of the agents of the security forces had used force against the protesters movement Electric Yerevan during a load June 23 to dislodge the avenue Marshal Baghramian which they protested against rising electricity rates. These sanctions, revealed by the internal services of the police department on July 13, aim a dozen policemen. By order of the Head of the

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‘No To Plunder’ Not To Be Involved in ENA Audit #ElectricYerevan

July 9, 2015 by administrator

Leaders of the “No To Plunder” movement hold a press conference in Yerevan on June 30 (Source: Photolure)

YEREVAN (Mediamax)—The “No To Plunder” movement has decided not to take part in the international audit to be conducted at the Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA), according to statements made by members of the group to Mediamax.

An organizer of the “No to Plunder” movement, Sofia Hovsepyan, told Mediamax that their decision was preceded by discussions on the expediency of their involvement with various specialists, among them representatives and lawyers of international audit firms.

“After the discussions, we concluded that our presence would not ensure the transparency of the audit process. Logically, specialists conducting the audit deal with quite serious numbers and no international auditor will let us be present at the entire process. We will have to wait till the auditors step out of the room and present a certain result to us, which equals to presenting those results to the public, outside of those walls. It will create the impression that we have controlled the process and have seen that everything is ‘normal,’” said Hovsepyan.

According to her, the state’s proposal to allow activists to be involved in the audit group “was nothing but a formal step.”

Hovsepyan stressed that “No to Plunder” is against conducting an international audit of the ENA.

“The results of the audits conducted at the ENA have testified to the ineffective work of the company, and the latter has not taken any measure, except increasing electricity tariffs, to prevent it. We already have the results of the audits conducted over the past years. Additional money will be spent on this planned audit, which mainly aims to make it clear for us that the increase in electricity tariffs is objective,” she said.

“No To Plunder” will officially announce its decision not to be involved in the audit process at a press conference scheduled for next week, where participants will speak about the group’s next steps and demands.

Meanwhile, on July 14, “No To Plunder” will march to the General Prosecutor’s Office demanding that the policemen who used forcibly dispersed protesters participating in a sit-in on Marshal Baghramyan Avenue on June 23 be punished for excessive use of force.

President Serzh Sarkissian had previously called on the protesters “not to refrain from taking on a new responsibility and getting involved in the real process of elaborating the steps, thus reducing the skepticism that rules in the society.”

Hovsepyan noted that other than the President’s statement, “No To Plunder” has not received any official proposal to participate in the audit.

#ElectricYerevan public disobedience campaign – debate

July 9, 2015 by administrator

The developments we see in the Electric Yerevan protests can be described as nothing more than just a civil disobedience campaign, says Edgar Vardanyan, an expert from the Armenian Center of National and International Studies (ACNIS).

“It was very impromptu and not institutionalized; there was a specific goal related to specific government policies. It was not the authorities policies those people were expressing disobedience to, announcing that they wanted to change the regime and establish rule of law. They just wanted to have a specific decision changed,” he told reporters on Thursday.
Vardanyan said he thinks that the goal was very clearly reflected in the demonstrators’ slogans and activists’ speeches.
“They weren’t saying, ‘we complain about the hike’; it all had to do with the corrupt system that caused all that to happen, with the decision-making being non-transparent and ruling out citizens’ participation,” he added.
Analyzing further the popular movement’s structure, the expert said he sees that most of its participants are young people with average income.

Source: tert.am

Armenia: Decision to fine power giant aimed to cover debts? #ElectricYerevan

July 8, 2015 by administrator

The public regulator’s decision to fine the Electric Networks of Armenia is an attempt to cover the existing debts, says an activist of the civic group “No to Plunder”.

“I do not practically insist on that, but it’s quite possible that by fining the Electric Networks they will take the money from them to pay off the company’s debts,” Vaghinak Shushanyan told Tert.am, commenting on the decisions made by the Public Services Regulatory Commission (PSRC). Report tert.am

Describing the move as just a show for the society, the activists said he expects a lot more scenarios of the kind until the end of the promised auditing. “They have to try to throw dust in the society’s eyes …” he added.

In its session on Wednesday, the Commission imposed a fine totaling AMD 60 million (over $125,000) on the power giant in 11 different decisions. The meeting was also attended by Yevgeny Bibin, the company’s Russian chief executive.

Maxim Sargsyan, another activist of the group, also agrees that the decision is part of a political show.

“Naturally, it is a show, a belated decision which the PSRC should have made long ago, without waiting for pressure,” he told our correspondent.

Vice-Chairman of the Heritage party Armen Arustamyan shared the opinion.

According to him, it is “crying over spilt milk.”

“The show is going on, and it does not mean anything. The people have stood up, and steps being made can by no means influence the general process. They can only do something ‘post factum’ as if they were interested,” Mr Martirosyan said.

“The Electric Networks of Armenia company should have been fined two or three years ago, when it was accumulating debts because of mismanagement and there was a need for reforms, modernizing substations.”

Crossbencher Edmon Marukyan welcomes the step by the Public Services Regulatory Commission.

According to him, the public must demand even more.