Anahit Bakhshyan, a member of Raffi Hovannisian’s “Hello Yerevan” faction in Yerevan’s Municipal Council, issued a communiqué today calling the company, whose business is to paint red parking lines all over Yerevan streets and to fine those drivers who fail to pay for these parking spots, ‘financial terrorists’.

Bakhshyan claims that people parking their cars opposite the National Education Institute on Tigran Metz Avenue in Yerevan have complained for months that they are being fined for parking in spaces where no such red lines exist.

The council member says that even though employees of the mayor’s office and the parking company have visited the area and promised that fines will no longer be issued, institute workers claim they are still being fined.

Bakhshyan argues that such incidents are not happenstance but stem from the principle of fleecing the citizenry.

She says that many who receive dubious parking summonses either don’t know their rights or are too bothered to complain, and end up paying.

Bakhshyan concludes by citing Article 315 of Armenia’s Criminal Code dealing with ‘official negligence’.

The code states that public servants who fail to execute their duties properly, as a result of bad faith or negligence, resulting in damages, can be fined themselves or jailed.