Armenia’s Health Minister Anahit Avanesyan on Thursday defended her controversial decision to allow riot police to use more powerful stun grenades which some experts say can kill protesters.
Avanesyan formally added the Russian-made Zarya-3 grenades to a list of crowd control equipment authorized by her ministry on June 26, two weeks after security forces clashed outside the Armenian parliament building with protesters demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation.
The police fired an unprecedented number of stun grenades during those clashes, injuring at least 83 protesters and 8 journalists. According to the Ministry of Health, 57 of them sustained shrapnel wounds which experts say could have been caused by Zarya-3 but not other explosive devices previously used against protesters in Armenia. One protester had three of his fingers amputated as a result.
Research conducted by the Yerevan-based Union of Informed Citizens (UIC) backed opposition claims that the police used Zarya-3 without the ministry’s permission. The police have not denied that.
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“Life changes and there emerge certain situations that necessitate changes in our legal acts,” Avanesyan told reporters, commenting on her June 26 decision.
Asked about possible life-threatening consequences of Zarya-3 explosions, the minister said: “I’m not the one who evaluates that. A I said, there is a professional body which decides, based on international experience and possible health risks resulting from the use of that equipment, whether or not to add that equipment to our list.”
The “professional body” consists of officials from two agencies subordinate to the Ministry of Health. Its approval of Zarya-3 cited by Avanesyan is at odds with statements made by two retired police generals who used to be heavily involved in crowd control.
One of them, former national police chief Valeri Osipian, insisted earlier this month that protesters can potentially be killed by Zarya-3 blasts. This is why, he said, security forces had previously used that type of stun grenade only for “disarming criminals and gangs.” Levon Yeranosian, a former commander of Armenian interior troops, likewise told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service last month that Zarya-3 was never used against protesters before Pashinian came to power in 2018.
Earlier in June, Yeranosian, was sentenced to four years in prison for ordering riot police to fire less powerful Zarya-2 grenades at Pashinian-led protesters in 2018. Yeranosian avoided imprisonment thanks to a general amnesty.
According to Russia’s leading state arms exporter, Zarya-3 is “designed to temporarily suppress mental stability of armed criminals with acoustic and light effects.”
