POLICE JOSTLED AND QUELLED PROTESTING STREET VENDORS OUTSIDE CITY HALL (VIDEO)

Tert.am
28.02.11

Police have jostled protesting street vendors who had gathered
outside the City Hall to voice their criticism over Yerevan Mayor
Karen Karapetyan’s decision to ban street trade.

The police urged the crowd not to gather immediate in front of the
City Hall but rather on pavement at the opposite side of the street
and were trying to quell the crowd.

Tert.am’s correspondent says that during the jostling a woman fell
down, injured her leg and was later hospitalized.

“Don’t stand here, go and stand over that corner,” the police officers,
headed by the Deputy Commander of the Guards-Patrol Service Regiment,
Khachik Avetisyan, would tell the protesters.

With emotions running high, on the scene of the protest were also MPs
of the opposition Armenian party Heritage, Stepan Safaryan, Anahit
Bakhshyan, Armen Martirosyan and Zaruhi Postanjyan, whose brother
was recently arrested on “bribery” charges.

Stepan Safaryan told reporters that prior to that incident Khachik
Avetisyan provoked the protesters and jostled them. “He would say [to
the police officers] in a scabrous tone ‘clear them [the protesters]
off from here’,” said Safaryan.

“We are dignified citizens, and demand that our rights not be
violated,” the protesters would say.

Stepan Safaryan further said that the police officers were literally
beating the protesting women with their elbows.

“Gang rule which is implemented in the day time … Such people cannot
be considered representatives of law-enforcements bodies,” said he.

Later in the day the police released a statement in which it denied
the use of force against protestors.

From: A. Papazian