CRIMINALS SAID TO ASSAULT ARMENIAN OPPOSITION MPS AT POLICE BUILDING

Haykakan zhamanak
February 28, 2008
Armenia

Criminals assaulted opposition MPs and journalists at a police
department in Yerevan on 27 February, an Armenian pro-opposition
daily has reported. The MPs had come to the building to clarify the
reasons for the detention of three supporters of former President
Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who is disputing the result of the 19 February
presidential election. The following is the text of an unattributed
article titled "Another act of violence" published in Haykakan Zhamanak
on 28 February:

At about 2230 [1830 gmt] yesterday a group of criminal elements
used violence against MPs, journalists and representatives of
non-governmental organizations in the presence of police officers
in the building of Central Department of the Police of the Republic
of Armenia.

Zaruhi Postanjyan, a member of the Heritage [opposition] parliamentary
faction, Stepan Safaryan [a member of the same parliamentary faction],
journalists and representatives of non-governmental organizations
went to the police to clarify the reasons three young persons had
been taken into custody from Freedom Square [the venue of rallies by
Ter-Petrosyan’s supporters].

The police building was under the control of criminal elements, who
decided who has a right to enter and who does not. It is likely that
it was the criminals who took the young persons to the police.

Anyway, the criminal elements assaulted the MPs and journalists,
forcibly removed them from the building, and shut themselves in the
building with uniformed police officers.

After representatives of the Ombudsman’s office arrived, the three
young persons who had been detained were allowed to leave the building.

Some time later the criminal elements, which were acting without
obstruction and under the patronage of the police, ran out of the
building and drove rapidly away.