Eight killed in Armenian protests
g/2008/0302/breaking28.htm
March 2, 2008
Eight people were killed and 33 police injured in Armenia’s capital
during overnight protests, which ended after the government declared
a state of emergency and mobilized the army.
The state of emergency, effective until March 20, followed the worst
unrest in a decade, sparked by opposition protests against a February
19th presidential election they said was rigged.
Police fought pitched battles with opposition supporters who have
held daily protests since Prime Minister Serzh Sarksyan was elected
president.
The state of emergency bans protests and imposes censorship. Outgoing
President Robert Kocharyan said he introduced the restrictions "to
prevent a threat to constitutional order".
He accused demonstrators of firing weapons and grenades and planning a
coup d’etat. The opposition rejected this, saying police had attacked
a peaceful protest.
A police statement said the deaths were under investigation, adding:
"We don’t know if they were policemen or protesters."
About 2,000 protesters stayed on in a square in the centre of Yerevan
armed with metal rods and Molotov cocktails as army trucks headed
towards the capital of the former Soviet republic, lying in a Caucasus
mountains region emerging as a key transit route for Caspian Sea oil
and gas supplies.
But the crowd melted away after a message was read out from Levon
Ter-Petrosyan, the protest leader and defeated challenger in the
election, urging his supporters to go home.