Talk:Nikol Pashinyan

Citing US financed NGOs and sites as evidence of freedom and economic improvment

It is no secret that under Pashinyan Armenia started distancing itself from its traditional ally Russia and started strengthening relations with the west. Under this presumption I find it highly biased to take two sources, one of the a directly US financed NGO, and claim that Armenia under Pashinyan "has seen a significant improvement in democracy, freedom of the press, and tackling corruption" and that the economy "has also grown significantly becoming one of the fastest growing economies in the post-Soviet Union" when the only two sources for such claims are US backed NGOs.

Mind you, the article already claiming economic excellence came out in November 2019, so in less than a year Pashinyan turned the economy in one of the fastest growing ones? This is even more refuted by the current IMF report for Armenia where we can clearly see that already in 2017 its economy started growing with the current pace.

I therefore ask to remove such obviously biased propaganda which does not conform with the second WIKI Pillar. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ValterUdarnik (talk • contribs) 14:27, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

That would be subbing your opinion for a Reliable Source - see Wiki's policy on No Original Research. If you have a problem with a statement, you can tag it with the Disputed template and open a TP discussion to obtain consensus.50.111.6.31 (talk) 08:10, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

A pic with Trump

Can we use this pic - [1] - in the article ? I mean the pic with Trump (its number 6 out of 7 pics). 46.71.193.126 (talk) 11:00, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

• [2] - additional pic. 46.71.193.126 (talk) 11:00, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

  No, in both cases the license is not compatible with what we may use.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:41, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion

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• Nikol Pashinyan.jpg

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Birthplace

Mr. Pashinyan was born in Ijevan, Armenia. The town is not in Western Azerbaijan. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.12.203.8 (talk) 12:43, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Isn't "Nikol" a female name?

As far as I know, Nikol (and Nicole) is a female name... LeticiaLL (talk) 20:58, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

No, not in Armenian.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:41, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

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• Nikol Pashinyan poster on car.jpg

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Need for separate section about 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war

Currently the article has very little to say about one of the most significant events during Pashinyan's premiership, the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. It would be ideal for it to have its own section in the article. Editors with experience on the topic, please help to add this section. --Revolution Saga (talk) 14:00, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Biased article

This article is very biased in favor of Pashinyan and incorrectly cites several sources. Among the errors I've noticed:

• The lead leaves out that Pashinyan was charged with libel.
• The lead states the 2008 election being fixed as a given fact even though Ter-Petrosyan was very unpopular.
• The lead blames the 2008 protests deaths on being "squashed by government forces" and fails to mention Pashinyan incited a mob to attack police and attempt to overthrow the government, as Wikileaks confirms.
• This source does not credit Pashinyan with "improvement in democracy, freedom of the press, and tackling corruption". It is also outdated now.
• This source does not credit Pashinyan with a fast growing economy; it does not even mention him. In 2019, this would've had more to do with Serzh Sargsyan.
• Aravot is run by Ter-Petrosyan supporters; it should not be used for MOS:PUFFERY such as "reputation of a leading and talented journalist"
• "the peaceful demonstrations on Freedom Square came to an end...when the government used violence to disperse the crowd at Freedom Square". It was a violent protest that attacked police, as confirmed by Wikileaks.
• "He accused the Republicans of 'announcing war against its own people'." More heavy bias.

I had removed a lot of the heavy bias and also added more sources to give a more balanced perspective. Including a Hetq article written by Edik Baghdasaryan who has also criticized previous Armenian governments and is a very trustworthy source. The article needs to be updated for 2021. Pashinyan has been criticized by the European Federation of Journalists and International Federation of Journalists for passing laws that violate freedom of expression, he is no longer improving "democracy, freedom of the press, and tackling corruption". I have added a large amount of new information with credible citation, but it has been removed without any explanation of what the issue was. KhndzorUtogh (talk) 17:48, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for taking it to the talk page. Going to address your points 1 by 1:

• libel: If mentioning that Pashinyan was charged with libel, it should also be mentioned that the charge of libel was heavily criticized and widely labeled as a case of political prosecution. That context is necessary, and I don't think that amount of detail is necessary in the lead given that it doesn't change the light in which it paints Pashinyan.
• 2008 elections - it is widely believed that election fraud did occur. Maybe we could adjust this to be in less concrete language but the point stands.
• 2008 protests - I don't see what is incorrect about the statement that the deaths in the 2008 protests were cause by a government crackdown. As for adding that context about Pashinyan, please link evidence to support the claim that he incited a mob or aimed to overthrow the government. Wikileaks is not considered a reliable source for wikipedia (and regardless, the only relevant wikileaks document I know of mentions no such thing and also happens to support the notion that the elections were falsified)

• improvements in democracy and economy - I don't see why the sources have to say that Pashinyan is directly responsible for these, that is not what the text in the lead says. The text says that those improvements happened under him.
• Aravot - Please cite some evidence towards this claim.
• Wikileaks protests - again wikileaks is not a reliable source
• Quote regarding Republicans announcing war - It's clearly a quoation from him, which he is stated as "accusing", how is this in any way biased?

Now regarding the edit I reverted, there is wealth of problems I saw to the point where it is difficult to address them all but I'll point out some examples of what the issue is.

• adding the mention of his newspaper bieng shut down for libel without providing the context of it being widely considered as political persecution
• rewriting the content regarding the 2008 election protests to disregard credible reports of election fraud and generally introducing strong pro-authorities bias
• Using good sources but drawing exaggerated conclusions from them. For example, rewriting the sentence about Armenia seeing major improvments in democracy with the counter that "others have criticized Pashinyan for just being a populist speech giver", with this as the source: https://hetq.am/en/article/131770. It is undue weight to include the opinion of a single figure in that way.
• Adding content claiming the 2021 elections were fraudulent without the context that the elections were considered very well and fairly conducted by all observers "Kocharyan's party disputed the election results and accused Pashinyan of electoral fraud"
• unexplained removal of "just before graduation for his political activities" from the sentence regarding pashinyan being expelled from university
• inclusion of an unreliable source "The Armenite" in support of claims that Pashinyan incited the 2008 protest violence

There's many more examples but I figure this is enough to start a discussion. In general, I found these edits to massively change the tone of the article from being fairly neutral to strongly biased against Pashinyan. In many areas the wording is simply changed around to create this tone more. In particular the narrative that Pashinyan incited the 2008 protest violence is being pushed without evidence. Achemish (talk) 08:11, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

• Who exactly does "widely criticized" consist of? Seems to only be a freelance journalist named Mark Grigorian who claims that.
• Widely believed by Pashinyan, Ter-Petrosyan, and their supporters, perhaps. But the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Council of Europe, and the European Parliament deemed the election to be largely democratic: :"The February 19 presidential election in the Republic of Armenia was administered mostly in line with OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and standards. The high-State authorities made genuine efforts to address shortcomings noted in previous elections, including the legal framework, and repeatedly stated their intention to conduct democratic elections."[3] RFE also confirmed that Serzh Sargsyan was considered the favorite to win.[4]
• Because it leaves out the very crucial details of Pashinyan inciting a mob to attack police, and one-sidedly blames everything on the government. That same Pennington Wikileaks source is already used on article, and you will need a consensus if you want to remove it entirely.
• Because it's original research if Pashinyan isn't directly mentioned. And regardless, Pashinyan has been heavily criticized by human rights defenders and international organizations over the past year, so the "improvements in democracy and economy" are now outdated anyway.
• Source for Aravot being a pro-LTP newspaper.
• Again, Wikileaks is already heavily cited in the article, and is citing an American political figure, not an anonymous person.
• Because "announcing war against its own people" is a huge violation of WP:NPOV.
• If we're going to include Pashinyan's many unsubstantiated electoral fraud accusations, it is only fair to include the same accusation from his opponents.
• Because "political activities" doesn't mean anything of substance and, according to the source, seems to just be the claim of Pashinyan, who often makes false claims.

The article was extremely biased for Pashinyan and promotes a lot of undue information, until the changes I made to make it more neutral. It seems you removed everything that doesn't portray Pashinyan favorably. You removed the entire 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war section. You removed around 20 sources for being "unreliable" but have not explained why sources such as Eurasianet, The Guardian, Armenpress, OC Media, Hetq, etc. are unreliable. There's nothing biased about Pashinyan being criticized by the European Federation of Journalists and International Federation of Journalists for suppressing freedom of expression. KhndzorUtogh (talk) 22:58, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

This is a side note but we can't use wikileaks on a BLP and no local consensus is going to be able to override that. Hell will freeze over long before that is kosher. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:39, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the input. I have updated my changed to not include Wikileaks at all, and also removed the source that Achemish took issue with. The article is more balanced now, in addition to being up to date. --KhndzorUtogh (talk) 14:40, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Ymblanter What about the dozens of sources you removed is "just no"? --KhndzorUtogh (talk) 11:00, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Every sane person can clearly see that you introduce absolutely unacceptable POV to the article. If you can not see it you should not be editing Wikipedia.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:39, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Ymblanter As I have already explained in great detail, the article in its current state is heavily biased POV. The unreliable wikileaks sources were used for almost three years before being removed. The text assures the reader that all of Pashinyan's libel charges were illegitimate while revealing almost nothing he printed. He's credited with significant economic growth by a source that doesn't even mention him. Very little information post 2018 is included, after which reliably sourced criticism of Pashinyan has greatly increased. There is no mention of the European Federation of Journalists and International Federation of Journalists criticizing Pashinyan for passing laws that violate freedom of speech. There is no mention of opposition politicians being arrested under false pretenses. There is no section for the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, which even Ter-Petrosyan blames Pashinyan for. There's no mention that Ter-Petrosyan now accuses Pashinyan of being anti-democratic.[5] If there is anything specific you would like to change in my version, please tell me, because I'm sure there are improvements that can still be made. But the vast majority of it is reliably sourced. --KhndzorUtogh (talk) 18:44, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Instead, everybody here seems to think that your version is unacceptable POV.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:47, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Ymblanter By "everybody" do you mean just Achemish and yourself? Because this is WP:NOTAVOTE and neither of you have identified any unreliable sources or anything violating POV yet. --KhndzorUtogh (talk) 13:23, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Let us put it differently, so far you are the only user here unhappy with the text.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:13, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Ymblanter WP:SILENCE is the weakest consensus. The article used forbidden WikiLeaks sources for over six years before they were all removed. You still have not pointed out anything wrong with my changes or suggested anything to improve them. KhndzorUtogh (talk) 16:24, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

I am sorry but if you can not see why the text you are going to introduce is extremely biased this is your problem. Apparently, everybody else can see it.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:28, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Open an RfC if you want a broader opinion.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:29, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Request for comment on updates and changes

Does this revision have any POV issues? If so, what specifically should be changed? --KhndzorUtogh (talk) 08:51, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

• Hello KhndzorUtogh, I my opinion, the Eurasianet content about economic growth should be added back, as I don't see a reason for it's removal, and maybe rewording the part about being accused to be a traitor, because that wording implies that legal action was taken, maybe "labelled as a "traitor"" would be better, attributing the label would help too. I'll give further feedback when I have more. - Kevo³²⁷ (talk) 09:46, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

References