Azatutyun.am – Riot police clashed with protesters and made more than 100 arrests on Monday as daily anti-government demonstrations organized by Armenia’s main opposition groups entered their fifth week.
Scuffles broke out after security forces did not allow opposition lawmakers leading hundreds of supporters to enter a government building in Yerevan that houses four ministries. Several protesters suffered visible injuries or felt unwell in the melee.
Others claimed to have been beaten up by police officers after being dragged away and forced into the sprawling building.
“We didn’t do anything,” one of them, Artur Azizian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “We were handcuffed and lay on the floor, and many of the policemen approached and hit us.”
Azizian said he was taken to hospital from a police station in Yerevan a few hours later. He said doctors there told him that he suffered rib fractures.
A police statement said that three officers were also injured and required medical aid. It put the total number of arrests at 111. It was not immediately clear whether any of those detainees risked criminal charges.
The police also used force against some of the opposition lawmakers who wanted to enter the building to talk to the Armenian ministries of environment, local government, social security and health about the status of Nagorno-Karabakh acceptable to them.
One of those lawmakers, deputy parliament speaker Ishkhan Saghatelyan, condemned the police actions but said the protest leaders are undaunted by the use of force and will stage similar marches to other government buildings in the coming days. He said every government member must publicly speak up on the issue raised by the opposition.
The opposition accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of helping Azerbaijan regain full control over Artsakh when it launched the street protests in Yerevan on May 1. It drafted late last week a parliamentary resolution that rejects Azerbaijani control over the Armenian-populated territory and says Pashinyan’s government cannot make any territorial concessions to Baku as a result of a planned demarcation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
The two opposition alliances represented in the National Assembly challenged its pro-government majority to dispel its concerns by voting for the resolution during an emergency session slated for June 3.
Artur Hovannisian, a senior lawmaker from Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party, made clear on Friday it will boycott and thereby block the session. He accused the opposition of blackmailing the country’s leadership and exploiting the Karabakh conflict for political purposes.
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