For a Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) MP, not only batons, weapons, and water cannons constitute brute force
Hovhannes Sahakyan, the secretary of the RPA parliamentary group said to Radio Liberty the other day that the government “doesn’t use any brute force for now, although it has the right to do that.” www.aravot.am inquired of him today whether the government did a favor to people by not using brute force, or he just wanted to restrain the opposition with those words. He replied: “I, as a lawyer, can give a long lecture about the possibilities and impossibilities of using brute force, about right and wrong. I can explain what using brute force or using force means. Force is never soft or nice. Force is crude. To me, brute meant crude. If I chose the word ‘brute’ incorrectly, I can apologize to the public for that.” We asked to clarify whether they should use weapons against the people, he explained: “No, brute doesn’t only mean weapons. For example, not to allow them to hold a rally.” In response to our question what methods should be used not to allow, batons, he said: “If, for you, the only way of not allowing is batons, let it be batons too. However, for me, it is not batons, weapons, water cannons, or barbed wire. Police officers can just forbid them to participate, by creating a human wall, for example. However, let me make a short excursion related to brute force, since there were some journalists who tried to criticize. For your information, I can give a lecture, if necessary. The state and the government have the monopoly on the use of coercive force. The state and the government are separated in theory, but in practice, they are equated. An NGO, which is a part of civil society, cannot use force. And the state uses force when universal norms are violated, the law or rights. In this case, if it is violated, the government is entitled to use force. We are rather tolerant. By saying we, I mean the government.” In response to our question what would happen, when they stop being tolerant, he said: “For example, when there is provocation in it, I mean the processes that happened on the Freedom Square podium between the Heritage Party and some activists. If there had been irreversible consequences, physical injuries because of some problem there, who would have been responsible for that? You would have said that police officers were not there and didn’t prevent.” As for the interference of police officers in Spitak and Aparan and the appeal to compatriots that the rally was illegal, Hovhannes Sahakyan noted that the police did their job. “They were not filming the faces of those gathered, but the whole process, so that they had facts in case of provocations. Those are different.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
