“That gathering was exceptional in that there had not been such a legal gathering in Armenia for a long time. It is very rare in Armenia that the organizers of the meeting respect the law’s requirement and submit information to the municipality. Needless to say, the gathering was peaceful. The police were only supposed to support the gathering, but they detained all the people with posters, and also prohibited the movement of the gathering along the pre-specified route,” during the online discussion by the Media Center, referring to the demonstration organized on August 24 in Freedom Square, on the occasion of which foreigners gathered among them to speak out about the continuation of Russian aggression against Ukraine for half a year, Daniel Ioannisyan, coordinator of programs of the Association of Informed Citizens, said. According to him, the police made an illegal demand to stop the gathering, and for the “non-fulfilment” of that, the participants were detained. Daniel Ioannisyan emphasized that a few days before this, the media resources and Telegram channels affiliated with the Russian Federal Security Service had spread information that they were unhappy that the municipality authorized the gathering. “Some Russian circles were very dissatisfied with the fact that some Russian activists are walking around Yerevan quietly.
The fact that the Russians eavesdropped on the Russian activists sitting in the cafe and published it is a crime, and we filed a report on the crime.” Aravot.am sent a question to the speakers: “A number of civil society organizations condemned the actions of the police in a joint statement, noting that the police made arrests without explanations. Please note that since May of this year, during the protests of the Resistance Movement, have they ever condemned the actions of the police, which were carried out without explanations, were accompanied by the disproportionate use of force, and were manifested, among other things, in the cases of arresting minors and torturing protesters in departments? If they did not condemn, please explain why. Let us remind you that the use of disproportionate force was recorded by the Armenian Human Rights Defender.
For the sake of objectivity, I should also note that cases of violence by protesters against the police have been recorded, but does this give the police the right to retaliate in the same way, and human rights defenders not to react to the police’s alleged wrongdoings?” Daniel Ioannisyan first said to search and find out whether they were condemned or not, and described as painful the fact that we are asking such a question without searching. Then he emphasized: “Those who didn’t follow us or didn’t search for us, in any case, I must say that we have condemned in many cases, we have submitted crime reports about the actions of the police, we have taken measures to document them. Even many representatives of the opposition use the facts we collected to show that the police have committed illegalities. There is no difference for us, we believe that freedom of assembly is for everyone, but yesterday’s incident is more worrying because it happened at the order of a foreign state. Then? What will they order next?’
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Artur Sakunts, in his turn, stated: “This action by the government showed that not only is the Russian government fighting against its opposition, but the Armenian government is also fighting against the opposition citizens of the Russian Federation, who criticize all the aggressive actions of the Putin regime. It’s about criticizing crimes against humanity, not just actions against Ukraine.” Artur Sakunts added, “I urge you not to confuse the problem of RA opposition-government relations with RF-opposition relations. Yes, we criticized it. It is about the regime of another state dictating what the RA police should do to people who express themselves against it. Please don’t compare this, don’t mix it up.”
Luiza Sukiasyan
