REPORTER BEATEN UP, SEVERAL OPPOSITION FIGURES DETAINED IN YEREVAN

Interfax
April 9 2009
Russia

A correspondent for A1+ news agency David Jalalian has been assaulted
in the center of Yerevan.

"An ambulance team offered him first aid at the office of the agency
after which he was taken to hospital," the agency reports.

On Wednesday evening the police and special forces surrounded a
thoroughfare in central Yerevan to prevent opposition members from
going there for a so-called political walk.

The coordinator of the opposition Armenian National Congress Levon
Zurabian and nine other people were detained.

At the congress press service Interfax was told that the police used
force in the process of the detention.

The central thoroughfare remains cordoned off by the police.

Yerevan police told Interfax that all ten detainees are at the central
precinct. The police spokesman refused to name the reasons for or
details of the detention.