Yesterday presidential candidate Levon Ter-Petrosyan visited Ararat region being escorted by a long line of cars.
During this visit there was an incident in Artashat, which Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s supporters say was a murder attempt. As for the candidate, he says “it is a terror against a presidential candidate”. Before visiting Artashat the presidential candidate had several unscheduled meetings in Ayntap, Marmarashen, Dimitrov, Verin Artashat village communities. A lot of people have attended the meetings. After Artashat the presidential candidate also paid a visit to Pokr Vedi village community. Levon Ter-Petrosyan also visited Vosketap and Ararat (Davalu) villages and also visited the museum after Vazgen Sargsyan and his family. People slaughtered lams for Ter-Petrosyan in Ararat. A lot of people have attended the rally in Ararat too. According to our information from different places, the number of participants exceeded 3,5-4 thousand.
Now let’s discuss the incident we spoke about above. When Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s supporters arrived in Artashat city after their visit to Verin Artashat, the central square was already full of many people. The square is located between a street from one side, and a line of buildings from the other side. One of the buildings was the local government building, the other one – Serzh Sargsyan’s pre-election headquarter, and the third one – the regional management board. At the beginning a woman started yelling. It was not clear what she was saying, but it was clear that she was not one of Ter-Petrosyan’s supporters. Aram Sargsyan said that if there were people who did not agree with them, they could go away and not participate in their rally. People started speaking that the mentioned woman had been paid 5000 AMD to do such things and the purpose of such action was organizing sabotage. Stepan Demirchyan and Aram Sargsyan made a speech. During all this time the mentioned woman was yelling. As the woman was not able to do anything there, about 20 young men (20-25 years old) arrived at the place by cars, which did not have any plate numbers. These young people started throwing pieces if ice, stones, bottles and other things at the participants of the rally. Some time later those people started throwing things at candidate Ter-Petrosyan and a fight started. During the fight the mentioned young men were speaking slang and insulting the participants of the rally. The participants were repeating the name of Levon Ter-Petrosyan. There were no policemen there and no one managed to interfere or stop those guys. Time by time they were stopping and later again throwing stones. Nikol Pashinyan and Ter-Petrosyan, who were speaking at that time, addressed their word to the regional governor and asked, “Where is your police?”. The young men were becoming more active when the speakers were speaking about the “mouse from Mkhchyan” and showing posters with mouse traps on them. The young men also tried to attack Ter-Petrosyan’s car. The deputy head of Ter-Petrosyan’s security service, State security lieutenant colonel Sargis Hovhannisyan tried to stop them. 7-8 young men attacked him. According to our information, they have broken his face bone and injured his head. S. Hovhannisyan has been taken to hospital. Levon ter-Petrosyan stressed that all what was happening there was sabotage, hooliganism and applied to the governor Alik Sargsyan and suggested him to stand on the scene and make those hooligans come down. After a number of petitions the governor got up on the scene and said that he hadn’t seen anyone throwing stones to them… “Just I want to petition the police… At this moment I have not seen any fight,” announced the governor. His speech was interrupted by whistles of the participants. “I bear responsibility for any conflicts or fight. Please listen to me and let them conduct their rally normally,” said the governor. After the governor’s speech Ter-Petrosyan took the microphone and said to the governor, “This rally has been permitted legally, thus legally allowed rallies shall have security officers to control the situation there. I don’t see any policemen in uniforms here. What does it mean? You are responsible to protect this rally, it is your responsibility. You haven’t done that. You have violated that law”. The governor of Ararat region had one more speech and said, “I am fully responsible for today’s rally starting just from now, and I was responsible before this time too. I am responsible for any violations and I will follow the processes to make sure everything is clean. As for the police and their service, you can apply to them and ask that question to them directly, however I see many policemen here doing their duty. Mr. Ter-Petrosyan, often you don’t like it when policemen are appearing in squares in their service uniforms,” the governor said. “No. We like our policemen. We like the policemen in uniforms and they are the ones who had to stop these provocateurs,” said Ter-Petrosyan. After these words the participants loudly repeated his name and the rally continued. After the rally Ter-Petrosyan visited the police station of Artashat. There wasn’t anyone there to take an application from the candidate concerning the incidents that had happened. Some time later at least several investigators arrived. Ter-Petrosyan told them the details of the incident and demanded to arrest the criminals as soon as possible. Ter-Petrosyan’s pre-election headquarter made a statement yesterday, which writes the following: “This criminal provocation has been organized by the incumbent cleptocratic government. It has been found out that this incident has been organized personally by Hovik Abrahamyan’s brother MP Johnik Abrahamyan and that action was coordinated by the head of the social security department of the regional management board of that region. The latter also serves as the head of the territorial electoral commission”. According to Ter-Petrosyan’s supporters and witnesses, J. Abrahamyan’s son has actively participated in the mentioned conflict. According to the police, citizens of Mkhchyan village community Raya Asatryan and citizen of Artashat Ofelya Hovsepyan have applied to the Artashat police department and complained that presidential candidate Ter-Petrosyan and the other speakers have insulted the government and spoken bad words about it, after which they loudly said that they didn’t agree with them, and 4-5 people started hitting and beating them, as a result of which they fell down and got body injuries. The police has instituted legal proceedings.