It is a fact that today the press is freer than ever, so free that it goes beyond what is permissible—starting with personal insults. Acting President of Armenia Alen Simonyan stated this in an interview with the state-funded Public Television—and reflecting on the country’s opposition being against the resolution on Armenia adopted by the PACE a few days ago and the argument that they could not vote for a resolution that talks about the progress of democracy in Armenia, whereas there is pressure on the country’s press, criminal and political persecution of elected local government leaders, and judges who make decisions that are not to the authorities’ liking are also being persecuted.

According to Simonyan, all those who have a criminal past have started engaging in politics in order to present criminal cases as criminal prosecution.

"Excuse me. What kind political persecution? We passed the elections, we [i.e., the ruling power] won the most open elections in the most difficult situation, we won, we lost in some cities. Do you think that because of that we should have taken some steps? No? Those people are attempting to cover up their crimes with their political activities," Simonyan said.

Commenting on the criminal prosecutions launched due to the verdicts against the judges, Simonyan stated:

"It is obvious that at least until recently they had a big problem in the judicial system. When the authorities refused to call the judges, those who had appointed those judges at the time thought, ‘Well, if the authorities do not do [it], we can do it;’ and they were not hesitating to use that opportunity. The judicial system in Armenia will be ‘cleansed.’ There will be a free, independent, clean judicial system, the decisions of which will not always satisfy the authorities, but it will be an independent judicial system.”

Simonyan assured that if any representative of the incumbent Armenian authorities gets involved in corrupt deals, he will be punished by his teammates—thus ruling out the possibility of that.

"It is an impossible thing, at least for my teammates, not to mention in terms of the head of the country. If any of us becomes corrupt, we will not ‘escape,’ we will be punished. If we go in such a direction, our colleagues will punish us (…)," Simonyan said.

Referring to the opposition's criticism that a number of foreign visits made by Alen Simonyan as National Assembly Speaker did not yield any results, Simonyan responded that his last visit to the United States was unprecedented during the last 30 years.

"The last time an equivalent Armenian official met with such a high-ranking official was probably during the period of independence 30 years ago; after that there have been no such meetings. Those meetings of mine are the guarantees of Armenia's security. They say, for example, ‘caviar diplomacy.’ So why should we have diplomacy? We [i.e., Armenia] are compelled to oppose our mind, honesty. This is grand diplomacy where we make three times more effort to be able to advance what we have to say," the Acting President of Armenia said.