The difference between the lesson read to the police and their actions

  On March 20, after another occurrence in the Freedom square Anahit Bakhshyan, a Heritage MP stated that.

 On March 20, the supporters of the hunger striker in the Freedom square Raffi Hovannisian tried to install a big umbrella. However, the police officers broke and smashed it into pieces squeezing the secretary of the Heritage faction Larissa Alaverdyan’s hand in the unfolding parts, the iron bars of the umbrella. The party MP Anahit Bakhshyan told “Aravot”, “My leg and Zaruhi Postanjyan’s hand were injured. And you should have seen that scene, the police officers were dragging that broken umbrella with Larissa Alaverdyan’s hand stuck in it and she was forced to run.” However, in response to our question whether the police officers deliberately harmed them, Mrs. Bakhshyan answered negatively, “No, it was not deliberate. They just had not taken any precautions. Their goal was to break it and they did not care what would happen to anybody during that. Well, they were just iron bars; they were breaking and the edges touching. But there were even children there.” In response to the question whether the police officers explained their actions, why one can put a medium size umbrella and not a big one, in advance Anahit Bakhshyan answered, “No, they didn’t explain it in any way. At about 17:30 we tried to put up the umbrella, perceiving it the same way as an ordinary umbrella, just of a bigger size. A police colonel immediately appeared and said that it was not right that we were doing that without permission. We said we were sorry and he seemed for a moment to agree. But in two seconds he came back and told us to remove it, he would call soon and gain a permission and then we would put it up. We removed it. Armen Martirosyan asked whether half an hour was enough. He answered yes; they would answer within half an hour. We said we warned them we would put it up in half an hour again. Half an hour later we opened the umbrella, the colonel approached and said no, we would not put it up, they forbade. We asked why. They said they forbade, end of story, they did not allow. We said there were no violation of law and we wanted to install, because the weather was unpredictable. And that clash occurred and they just broke that umbrella.” Larissa Alaverdyan with her hand stuck in the iron bars of the umbrella sat beside the broken umbrella and refused to leave until the police high-rankers would not give her proper explanation and clarification according to whose and what order that had been done. Around 2 hours after the event she was visited by the Chief of Police of the Kentron (center) district with an investigator. “They drew up a report. Mrs. Larissa and Armen wrote a thorough explanation”, Mrs. Bakhshyan told us. The Heritage party spread a message about what happened demanding from the Special Investigation Agency, the Prosecutor’s Office of the RA and the Police to consider that as reporting a crime and to open a case. In response to a question, whether there were any hopes that an impartial investigation would be carried out, Anahit Bakhshyan answered, “We have no hopes. I think that this was a direct order from the presidential palace and the permission should be from there.” Putting this into context, she reminded certain lines of the RA president Serzh Sargsyan’s speech at the meeting of the police board of the RA, “Any police actions should not be interpreted in different ways when examined in terms of the fundamental and common values of the society.” Anahit Bakhshyan said, “I want to stress the difference between this lesson read to the police officers and their actions. His beautiful speech about the police officers’ attitude and our present reality are the exact opposites. Thereby I want to understand, if the president at power gives such an order, but the reality is this, is he not ashamed of his immoral, to say the least, words? Is he not concerned about what the people think of him, when he gives orders in his speech and they are simply not carried out? How long should we stand this ambiguous games, this kind of difference between the words and the actions. Every time you read the president’s new speech you think maybe this time something will unexpectedly change. But the ink was not dry on that speech when we saw quite the opposite.”

P.S. Today according to the Heritage party message during the speech time at the NA perceiving the Freedom square “as an important place for returning the people their rule and moving one of their direct functions to the people’s square” the Heritage party MPs will address their speeches right from the square.