On July 20, Movses Shahverdyan, President of Labor Socialist Party of Armenia, was moved to Erebuni medical center with serious body injuries received from the collision of the protesters and the police. The president of the political party is discharged from the hospital, and as he says, he is in an awkward situation, “I’m in bed waiting for the bruises to go away.” The initial psychological state, according to Mr. Shahverdyan, was shocking, “What happened to me, if I was told I would not believe. I had gone to Khorenatsi Street in the evening around 8-9 p.m. not to protest but to meet someone. I was going to Khorenatsi Street for the first time and was far from the police wall. When this scuffling began, one of the explosives thrown by the police exploded near me causing my shirt burning. At that time, I tried to go to Nar-Dos Street passing under the trees near “Druzhba” store to stay away from all this.”
According to Mr. Shahverdyan, there were very passive people there, mostly elderlies. “A group of people was passing, I was waiting for them to pass by, I do not remember well, some 7-10 persons in police uniform stormed the territory with truncheons. They saw me standing alone, I even had no newspaper in my hand and without saying one word, they attacked. And I got the first hit on my forehead with the police truncheon, which immediately caused a big rupture above my eyebrow,” – told Mr. Shahverdyan, adding that one police officer had caught his hands and began beating with truncheons. “All this lasted very short, someone said that journalists are coming, and they disappeared unexpectedly like appeared unexpectedly, I only managed to tell these young police officers, “Aren’t you ashamed, I am the age of your father and you are beating me for no reason. It looks like street hooligans pop up to beat and run away,” – mentioned Shahverdyan. In his words, he has got a big rupture on the forehead and a fracture and rupture on the upper nasal bone, suture on two places, rib fracture and bruises all over the body. “I am going to follow the case closely, it is very necessary to find these guys to say why did it they do it, whether they were instructed to do it, without any attempt of detention or something else. Let them be punishment as provided by the law,” – said Mr. Shahverdyan, adding that his steps will be political, “I will not leave this unpunished. Whoever was in my place, anyway, they had no right to do such a thing.”
Anush MATEVOSYAN
