«Compulsory-voluntary» clean-up day in Yerevan

On July 29 Yerevan Municipality initiated a citywide clean-up action in the capital. During the working meeting that took place several days before the event Mayor of the city Taron Margaryan instructed to ensure participation of all the employees of the structure headed by him and organizations subordinated to it in the citywide event.

«The Mayor instructed to inform once again and ensure active participation of the Municipality staff, organizations subordinated to the city hall, as well as our townsmen and all concerned structures in the event», reads the official statement released by Yerevan Municipality.

However Margaryan was not among the «caring residents of Yerevan» mentioned in his statement whom he personally encouraged to be present at the clean-up event. In response to observation regarding Taron Margaryan’s absence from the citywide clean-up activities Information and public relations department of the Municipality said that «participation of the Mayor in any way is not mandatory».

Really, according to Article 57 Point 5 of the RA Constitution any work cannot be compulsory or forced. However this prohibition of the Constitution should also apply to those people, whose «participation was ensured» in the clean-up activities of the city.

According to official statement 14550 people took part in the clean-up activities on July 29. Among them were employees of Yerevan Municipality, administrative districts, structures subordinated to Municipality, state and private organizations, representatives of educational institutions and NGOs.

«Everybody participated voluntarily», Artur Grigoryan, head of  Information and public relations department of Municipality, said in a telephone conversation with us.

That is, the sequence of logic of the municipality is as follows: first they demand to ensure everyone’s participation, then «officially» everyone «voluntarily» participates in the event, while Taron Margaryan calling upon everybody to take part in the activities was neither «officially» nor «voluntarily» among the participants of the clean-up action.

We would also like to remind you that that day for 5 hours there were from +40 to +41 degrees in Yerevan and it is very difficult to imagine that 14550 people voluntarily went out to work outside in the sun.