“If Sharmazanov or Ashotyan entered the ‘Yerkir Tsirani’ office and acted that way, would they be taken out of there like that? Of course not. I’m sure of that,” – said the president of the Helsinki Association human rights social organization Nina Karapetyants when talking about the incident involving the president of ‘Yerkir Tsirani’ Zaruhi Postanjyan during the voting of the Yerevan City Council.
The human rights activist assesses the situation negatively. “Every time we think that our police officers can not do worse, and every time they prove us wrong,”- said Nina Karapetyanc adding that the reaction of the police is even worse than she could have imagined. She has no idea how they are going to justify this. According to her, the important thing here is not the fact that it was a woman, but the fact that they forced violence on the deputy and a candidate for mayor.
Talking about the RPA’s claims that it was not a public place and Zaruhi Postanjyan did not have the right to do such a thing, the human rights activist said that Zaruhi Postanjyan was not the only person there, the place was open, and people were going in and out. If she tried to break into it with the door locked, then that would have been an issue, but there had been an alarm call, so she went there because of that and did not do anything illegal.
“This proved again that there is not such a thing as safe Armenia, even for an inviolable person,”- said Nina Karapetyanc.
A member of ‘Yerkir Tsirani’ party Gohar Arshakyan is confused: the police officers instead of checking the reality of Zaruhi Postanjyan’s announced facts, were forcing violence on her: “Zaruhi herself called the police. They were supposed to come and check. Why were they distracting and giving other directions? Two police officers went out, talked on the phone then started forcing violence on her.”
Gohar Arshakyan also informed that Zaruhi Postanjyan’s daughet has seen a doctor: “They are not saying good things.”
Lawyer Arayik Papikyan confirmed that there are not any legal, legislative restrictions for entering a pre-electoral office: “With the same logic, hundreds of people went in and out of the pre-electoral offices, but no one was asked whether they were their supporters or not.”
According to the lawyer, the reaction of the CEC president right after the incident was a forecasting for the further process of the case. It should be noted that the prosecutor’s office has qualified the police’s actions lawful.
Nelly GRIGORYAN
