Armenia: Youth Group Sparks Debate about Identity in the Facebook Age

An online “youth group initiative” set up by four 20-somethings in Armenia is illustrating how far Facebook can go in maximizing political influence while concealing identity.

The group, We Won’t Stay Quiet (Chenk Lrelu), registered its first success in mid-July with a video report that documented the decrepit state of the 10th century Sanahin monastery, a UNESCO-registered site in northern Armenia. Following an outcry, the government allotted 90 million drams, more than $240,000, for repairs.

Another video report followed about an army officer’s harassment of recruits; the officer was dismissed. Then came the story of a soldier (set to the theme music of Schindler’s List) who allegedly entered a psychiatric hospital after being beaten and threatened with rape by army officers. The military prosecutor started a criminal investigation on September 6, the same day the video was posted online.

Success on less dramatic issues also has been made; the Defense Ministry on September 19 sent a “special committee” to look into reports of alleged army violations of furlough rules after We Won’t Stay Quiet issued a report about such practices, News.am reported.

That record of government response is unprecedented for an Armenian youth group; particularly one that has no public presence apart from the Internet. Pro-government television stations have been quick to disseminate its materials as well.

It is a record that has fueled speculation that the group actually functions as a “cat’s paw” for the government; posing as a grassroots organization, which advances issues for the government to address that score emotional points with ordinary Armenians.

“The group seems to voice urgent issues, but it is a bit strange that nobody knows who they really are," commented human rights activist Arthur Sakunts, head of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly’s office in the northern town of Vanadzor.

“Otherwise, how come those issues raised by many other groups did not attract the same sort of attention?” Sakunts asked.

The psychiatric hospital soldier offers a case in point, skeptics say. Over the course of two months, the Ministry of Defense did not respond to human rights organizations’ appeals about the soldier, Armenian Helsinki Committee Chairperson Avetik Ishkhanian told reporters. The ministry did not respond to requests from EurasiaNet.org for comment.

But, according to one organizer, We Won’t Stay Quiet gets a response simply because its four organizers, aged 22 to 27 years old, know how to make proper use of the Internet’s “tools” and “opportunities.”

"Armenians tend to believe various conspiracy theories," said Ashot Poghosian, one of the group’s founders, in a phone interview with EurasiaNet.org. He described allegations that the group is linked to the government as “ridiculous.”

“[T]he country is in a shameful situation, and it's not difficult to find people suffering from injustices,” he added.

The group’s Facebook profile, which boasts 4,226 "likes," declares that it is made up of politically independent young people who want to “bring the most urgent issues up for public discussion through the media.” Organizers say they do not publicize their names and professions or release photographs of themselves as a safety precaution.

It asserts that its videos “were shot by amateur camera and edited with the simplest software,” telling subscribers “You can do the same.”

Public relations consultant Armen Badalian dismisses the argument that We Won’t Stay Quiet is colluding with the government.

“I see no logic in it; our authorities would hardly talk about problems in order to solve them,” said Badalian. “Maybe this is a group of people who are experts in PR and the Internet, who, contrary to many other similar groups, manage to make their voices heard?”

Internews Armenia Production Manager Harutiun Mansurian shares that opinion; he says he shared one of the group’s videos on Facebook because they had done “a tasteful job.” “They try to use the right tools properly, and they succeed,” Mansurian said.

The army appears to attract the bulk of the four organizers’ interest, but Poghosian asserts that it is only because “it causes much debate” in the public sphere. A video about a baby who died from medical neglect in a regional maternity hospital arguably gained a similarly emotional response, and triggered a health ministry investigation.

But some of the videos appear to parallel neatly with government policy interests. Videotaped statements by residents of breakaway Nagorno Karabakh about their refusal to recognize the sovereignty of Azerbaijan were sent to Western embassies and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Yerevan, for instance. An appeal was also released for the Russian city of Sochi to stop the demolition of a statue to Armenian General Andranik Ozanian, a World-War-I-era national hero who led volunteer fighters against Ottoman Turkey.

Still, group co-leader Poghosian underlines that it is not fulfilling any official commission. "Nobody finances us, but we are ready to hear the viewpoints of people who share our concerns and worry about their home country," he said.