These days, police officers visit the houses of the activists who had participated in illegal dismantlement of pavilions in Mashtots Park and make reports to fine them. Reports have been made on members of the dismantling brigade – political scientist Manvel Sargsyan, the director of the Armenian Center for National and International Studies (ACNIS), political scientist Andreas Ghukasyan and Karen Shikoyan.
Before that, the police had made a statement and had warned that dismantling the pavilions was a crime and the guilty persons would be held accountable. The punishment provided is either a fine in the amount of 50 to 100 times the minimum wage or an arrest for 2 months at the most or an imprisonment for 2 years at the most. Manvel Sarsgsyan told during a conversation with www.aravot.am, “Law-enforcement bodies came on Sunday, at first they had gone to our home, then they came to my workplace. They wrote a report, they said administrative responsibility. They didn’t say how much, frankly speaking, I didn’t sign.” In response to our question whether he would pay the fine, Manvel Sargsyan said, “Why should I pay the fine? It is not clear what they do, what should happen, what fine? They do their job, they think it is so, let them do, we don’t have any problems with that. When they knock people down, what does a fine mean, after all? They pull women around, they don’t know what their job is at all. It is good that they have understood at last that they have to act, according to the law. We have told them thousands of times to act, according to the law and not to pull people around. They start to punch and kick, harm people, we can’t understand why.”
Let us mention that Karapet Rubinyan, a non-partisan included in the Heritage Party list, also participated in the Sunday events in the park and was pulled around by the police officers. Karapet Rubinyan doesn’t know yet whether he has been fined or not. He told us that he had come from Syunik at dawn, “It is possible that I am fined too, but I think that if there had been such a thing, they would have called me in Syunik, if they haven’t, it means unlikely.” Karapet Rubinyan mentioned that he hadn’t been harmed very much, but he had been hurt, “There was a small bruise on my hand that has already started to heal.”
Today in Mashtots Park, they were dismantling the children’s carousels that had been there for years. A few environmentalists were also in the vicinity – they were deciding what logo and what shirt they would use in the short run, during actions. This evening, Mashtots Park will have a new guest; environmentalists from France interested in the movement will visit.
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Hripsime JEBEJYAN
