NO POLICE INTERVENTION

A1+
01:40 am | June 01, 2009

Politics

Journalist for "168 Hours" Armine Avetyan and "Transparency
International" representative Sona Ayvazyan were beaten up at the
Malatia-Sebastia district’s 8/05 polling station at around 3 p.m.

"I was standing near the window when 20 shaved-heads came in. Six of
them surrounded the voting booth, while another six started pushing
and beating me and Sona. Commission president Petros Avetisyan,
Vice-president Khachatur Khachatryan were standing calmly and not
doing anything. They held us to the wall, surrounded us and started
stuffing the ballots," Armine Avetyan told "A1+".

They took Avetyan’s recorder, camera and even the phone so she wouldn’t
call anyone.

"Police officers were standing outside, but didn’t do anything."

According to the journalist, the shaved-heads could have been MP Samvel
Alexanyan’s men because Armine Avetyan had prohibited Alexanyan’s
relative from stuffing the ballots and the shaved-head had tried to
bribe the journalist.

"He kept trying to invite me to eat. He told me that he would pay me
money to stop me from doing my job," said Armine Avetyan, adding that
she had called Samvel Alexanyan and told him what had happened. In
response, Samvel Alexanyan told her that she should have called him
on the spot.

MP Anahit Bakhshyan received an alarm and rushed to the polling
station.

"There was a lot of commotion for some reason and it was clear that
they weren’t voters. I called Samvel Alexanyan and told him that this
is not a good service for the president. He got frustrated and told me
that he would tell those people to leave," Anahit Bakhshyan told "A1+".

"A1+" tried to find out information about the incident from proxies
and observers at the polling station, but each of them gave his
own explanation, saying that they had left the polling station at
that moment.