Agence France Presse
June 11, 2008 Wednesday 3:44 PM GMT

Armenia heeds European call to ease protest curbs

YEREVAN, June 11 2008

Armenia’s parliament on Wednesday approved a law easing restrictions
on public demonstrations, meeting a demand from Europe’s leading human
rights watchdog.

The Council of Europe had called for Armenia to loosen restrictions
imposed after violent post-election clashes between riot police and
opposition protesters in March that left 10 people dead.

The revised law will allow protesters to hold spontaneous rallies
without government permission, as long as they are limited to six
hours.

It also requires local authorities to prove that a potential
demonstration creates a direct threat of violence in order to deny
permission for it to be held and allows for judicial appeals of
refusals for permission.

Armenia’s opposition denounced the changes as "cosmetic."

"If local authorities want to deny permission for opposition protests,
they can always find reasons. We see these changes as purely
cosmetic," said Arman Musinian, a spokesman for opposition leader and
former president Levon Ter-Petrosian.

The violence in March broke out after police moved in to clear
thousands of protesters who had rallied for 11 days to protest the
victory of prime minister Serzh Sarkisian in a February 19
presidential election.

They alleged that the ballot had been rigged in Sarkisian’s favour and
that Ter-Petrosian was the real winner. Dozens more protesters were
injured, many from gunshot wounds.

A mountainous country of about three million people — wedged between
Iran and Turkey — Armenia has experienced repeated political violence
since gaining its independence with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet
Union.