Raffi Hovhannisyan called for a moment of silence to honor artist and intellectual Hakob Hakobyan before the open-air press conference of Hovsep Khurshudyan, the spokesman for Raffi Hovhannisyan’s headquarters, in Freedom Square today. Today is his funeral, and Raffi Hovhannisyan was sorry that he couldn’t be present. Mr. Khurshudyan said that they could imagine what ruling the Constitutional Court would make. He informed that the Heritage Party, Stepan Safaryan, the secretary general of the party for external relations, sent a letter to Wilfried Martens, the European People’s Party (EPP) President. The letter states that as he knows, on February 18, a presidential election took place in Armenia. Before the campaign he had conveyed his warm wishes to both candidates, and expressed hope that a free and fair election would be conducted. It wasn’t fair at all, since the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) tried to steal the people’s vote. It is nothing short of a miracle that despite Serzh Sargsyan abused state resources, Raffi Hovannisyan won a victory. They also inform Mr. Martens in the letter that Raffi Hovhannisyan is on a hunger strike and call on him to reconsider the decision to congratulate the incumbent president, in accordance with democratic standards. Armen Martirosyan, in his turn, applied to the city hall yesterday, asking to allow putting up one tent and one canopy. “We have received a decision from the city hall, according to which, the list of immobile monuments of Yerevan has been approved; it includes Freedom Square, which includes the Aram Khachaturian Big Concert Hall, the Aram Khachaturian Monument etc.” They decided to deny the request to put up a tent and grant the request regarding three canopies, which can be used only for protection against bad weather.” According to Hovsep Khurshudyan, they are not allowed to put up a tent on the asphalted area, but they are allowed to do that on the greenbelt area. Once they said this, the members of the Heritage Party started to put up a tent, which was prevented by police officers.
At this moment, representatives of the Heritage Party, along with their supporters, try to put up the tent. The police officers are going for a clash, pushing those gathered, and trampling down the tent.
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
