"The National Assembly is not a cemetery"
"You can't take out a memorial and put something else as a replacement. This means that you don't picture anything at all, not to mention that the content has nothing to do with October 27," former chairman of the National Assembly, deputy Tigran Torosyan said to "A1+" on the occasion of the installation of the "Biblical David" by sculptor Yervand Kochar as a memorial for the victims of October 27.
Ananit Bakhshyan, wife of Yuri Bakhshyan who was one of the victims of October 27, said the following regarding the statue. "I think that keeping the "Biblical David" by Yervand Kochar behind bars means to keep the ideology against that terrorism behind bars as well."
The copy of the sculpture has been installed in the yard of the National Assembly. The original is rather small and a couple of centimeters in size. The copy of the "Biblical David" was created through joint efforts of different sculptors and support from Kochar's sons.
Chief of staff of the National Assembly Gegham Gharibjanyan informed that the NA Protocol Department had contacted the author, Levon Tokmajyan and asked him to take his work back. "He did not wish to take it and at the moment the memorial is at the National Assembly. It is up to the National Assembly to decide what we are going to do with it."
What do you mean by "at the moment" the memorial is kept in the NA territory? In response, Gegham Gharibjanyan said:
"We have kept it somewhere. The National Assembly is not a cemetery for keeping memorials. We installed a monument. Instead of being happy, you are worrying over the fate of that memorial which, I must say, was not a work of art."
