Idle police officers and ‘good guys’ insulting journalists: tension reaches culmination in Akhuryan

The cruelest fight among enlarging villages of Shirak Province proceeds in Akhuryan. Akhuryan has never been this lively, the taxi drivers have never had this many passengers: the electors reach the polling stations primarily by taxi. The young people playing the role of a conductor do not even hide that they wait for people and they will be accompanying them. And to keep the order, the police officers, who are being paid, are almost left to idleness, their work is implemented by the journalists. The journalists were the ones to approach the police officers, saying – do you not see the queue? Why have you allowed not to keep the 50 metre radius? Only after our demand the police officers started urging the people waiting in front of the polling station since the morning to keep the order.

Moreover, the people gathered in front of the polling station did not skip the occasion of insulting the journalists, the lightest insulting word we were to hear was the “riff-raff”. “Where did these riff-raff come from?”, 2 women providing electors in 32/1 polling station got upset. And a very ugly story commenced in 32/2 polling station between women journalists and men standing in front of the polling station: seeing us,  they started to exclaim aggressively: “Do not even try to tape us.” Afterwards, they started to ridicule, as “you are typical police officers.” Subsequently, they lined up near the front sidewalk and when one of the journalists was taking shots of the general scene, one of them made an attempt of closing the camera with his hand, and an abdominous friend of his afforded himself to make an obscene expression towards the journalists.

In front of 32/4 polling station a queue was in place, the doors of the station were almost being broken. The president of the committee, Gnel Manukyan explains this with the fact that the candidates are many, each of them brings his followers with him to the polling station. Moreover, some candidates had come to the polling station with cars on which their posters were hung.

Nune AREVSHATYAN