YEREVAN, CA – Demonstrators demanding Nikol Pashinyan’s and his government’s resignation briefly shut down the metro network in Yerevan on Wednesday. There has been swelling anti-government unrest in recent weeks against Pashinyan’s defeatist stance on Artsakh’s status and increasingly his increasingly pro-Turkish positions.
Footage from social media showed protesters standing in the doors of metro carriages, blocking trains from moving. The activists demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan were chanting anti-government slogans.
“Citizens carried out protest action in Yeritasardakan metro station, disrupting metro traffic”, the metro in capital Yerevan said, adding that the doors to all subway stations had been closed in response.
In a statement published about an hour later, the metro said that traffic had been restored.
Over 350 people were detained across the city on Wednesday, RIA news agency reported, citing the police. A police spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how many people had been arrested and why.
Protests have simmered for weeks since Pashinyan said the international community wanted Armenia to “lower the bar” on its claims to Artsakh.
