LARISA ALAVERDIAN: THEY TRY TO LEAD ARMENIA BY WAY OF BECOMING POLICE STATE

Noyan Tapan
March 19, 2008

YEREVAN, MARCH 19, NOYAN TAPAN. Article 4 of chapter 1 of RA
Constitution determines that a person, his dignity, basic rights and
freedoms are inalienable and supreme values, and when carrying out
the power the people and the state are limited to these rights as an
immediately acting right.

Reminding journalists of it at the March 19 press conference,
Larisa Alaverdian, a member of the RA National Assembly Zharangutiun
(Heritage) faction, at the same time stated that this constitutional
provision is disregarded, as the authorities "try to lead Armenia not
by the legal way, but by the way of becoming a police state." According
to her, the evidence of it is the amendment made to the law on Holding
Meetings, Rallies, Processions, and Demonstrations, according to
which the conclusion presented by the Police or the National Security
Service can be a basis for prohibiting a mass event henceforth.

L. Alaverdian said that she fails to understand up to now why during
the March 1 events 7 civil persons died in Leo street, the shortest
street of Yerevan. "This number is too big for the international
practice," the deputy said adding that even during larger mass
disorders in Paris suburbs in 2005 no civil person died.