Armenian opposition movement to stage rally in capital despite ban

Arminfo
22 Mar 07

Yerevan, 22 March: "Yerevan mayor’s office has not made the decision
to prohibit staging of a rally within the allowed deadline," Nikol
Pashinyan, one of the leaders of the opposition Alternative movement
and Impeachment bloc and editor-in-chief of Haykakan Zhamanak
newspaper, has said.

He said that the Alternative movement is not going to give up staging
the planned rally on 23 March from 1700 [1300 gmt] to 1900 [1500 gmt]
exactly at the Freedom Square.

The first instance court of Yerevan’s Centre and Norq-Marash
communities has denied the suit by the leaders of the Aleternative
movement, Nikol Pashinyan and Petros Makeyan, against Yerevan mayor
Yervand Zakharyan. The leaders demanded that the mayor recognize his
13 March ban to stage a rally at the Freedom Square on 23 March
invalid. The court acknowledged that the mayor’s office did make a
mistake in terms of the timing of informing the organizers about its
decision. However, the court deemed this insufficient for declaring
the mayor’s decision void.