“Three hours later, I said, either charge me or let me go. They were shouting at each other. During that, representatives of the Human Rights Defender approached us and we talked. Four hours later they brought new witnesses and began to search. During that whole time, I didn’t know why they had arrested me. They were talking outside, and I managed to hear through the closed door why I was there. I was arrested on another pretext, but they wrote a different thing, they reported about suspicion of carrying explosives”, after being arrested, Ruzanna Yeghnukyan, wife of Garo Yeghnukyan, accused of assisting “Sasna Tsrer”, told details of what had happened at the police station.
Let us remind that prior to the Armenia-Diaspora forum, Garo Yeghnukyan’s family members tried to organize a demonstration in front of the Sports and Concert Complex to inform the conference participants that diasporans Garo Yeghnukyan and Jirair Sefilian are detained for their political views. But they did not succeed. They were taken to the Kentron Police Department.
They were released 4-4.5 hours later. Their rights defender Tigran Hayrapetyan considers police actions unlawful because if there are no grounds, they cannot keep people at the police station even for three hours. In general, the defender thinks that there has been an obvious ill-treatment displayed towards Garo Yeghnukyan family for four years.
Ruzanna Yeghnukyan is offended: if they were arrested for suspicion of carrying explosives, why did they not search them at the very beginning? “If they take such actions, I won’t be surprised that they will find something in the car, or on the roof”.
And Garo Yeghnukyan’s daughter, Elmone, added that four hours later when they wanted to search them, a policeman asked her, “Darling, shouldn’t I search your underwear? Maybe you are hiding something forbidden there”.
Nelly GRIGORYAN
