YEREVAN. – Eduard Minasyan and Davit Aghabekyan, the two remaining persons that were still detained during Friday’s pension reform protest across the Armenian Finance Ministry building, came out of capital city Yerevan’s Kentron Police Department on the same day.  

The activists, who had gathered in front of the Police departments, welcomed them by chanting “heroes.” 

Minasyan noted that he was subjected to violence while he was detained. 

Hakob Arshakyan, who was released earlier, had said that the police had choked his neck when detaining him.   

Aghabekyan stated that he was detained while he was trying to separate the police and the activists that were pushing one another.    

Even though administrative fines were set for all three of them, they informed that they did not sign the respective record and they are not going to pay anything because they have not done anything unlawful.

The new funded pension plan, which formally came into force in Armenia on January 1, 2014, is mandatory for those born in and after 1974 and voluntary for those born before 1974. In line with this plan, 5 to 10 percent of the monthly salaries in Armenia will be deducted and mandatorily be allocated to cumulative pension funds; the latter will be reimbursed as pensions once a person turns 63 years old.      

On January 24, however, the Constitutional Court decided to suspend the execution of some components in the Law on Funded Pensions pending the hearing—on March 28—of the petition submitted by the four non-ruling-coalition parliamentary forces—the Armenian National Congress, Prosperous Armenia, ARF Dashnaktsutyun, and Heritage—, and into the constitutionality of the several articles of the law.

Notwithstanding this, some employers already are deducting the mandatory pension payment from the salaries of their employees.    

Photo by Arsen Sargsyan/NEWS.am