It is the third day that the opposition rally organized by Levon Ter-Petrosyan and his supporters continues in the Liberty square.
The participants of the mentioned rally are staying at the square twenty-four hours a day since February 21. There are many tents in the Liberty square. There are fire places as well. At nights people get food. Sometimes they dance and even make some fireworks. The participants are periodically getting news from the scene. They are sure that the election of February 19 was violated and are demanding from the police and other responsible bodies to punish the falsifiers. New people, officials and MPs are joining the movement led by the first president. Yesterday Levon Ter-Petrosyan announced that two defense deputy ministers, general-lieutenant Manvel Grigoryan and Gagik Melkonyan had joined the national movement. Deputy public prosecutor, former military prosecutor Gagik Jhangiryan has joined the movement as well. “I have seen many elections and there have not been such big violations, scuffles, harassment, intimidation as we saw during this presidential election,” Jhangiryan said during the rally. “I am asking and petitioning you to protect your election,” he said. Gagik Jhangiryan, who led the investigation group of the October 27 terror, and later the investigation group of its separated case, spoke about that case too and said, “I would not be loyal to myself if I did not speak about the October 27 here. I absolutely agree with the political estimations of Levon Ter-Petrosyan. However, the proceedings of the separated case were stopped by serious violation of the judicial code. I believe this separated case will be investigated. I promise you that if you help, help your elected president you will help me finish my work. I am calling on all friends of Vazgen and his followers. I am calling on everyone who has participated in the war and is Vazgen’s friend, I am calling on you notwithstanding your uniforms and social status, guys it is enough to cry and regret when drinking toasts near the tables. It is time to protect this country,” petitioned Gagik Jhangiryan and added, “I am a lawyer, I am calling you on to make power pressure, don’t think twice, there is no general or soldier that can fight with the public”. In one hour after this speech we were informed that general public prosecutor Aghvan Hovsepyan had submitted a petition to the president to dismiss Jhangiryan from his position. Some time later Jhangiryan made a speech again and said, “Now I am a former prosecutor. If I kept with Serzh Sargsyan, if I made a speech during his rally, abused my powers and official status, I would stay in office and even could get a better position. However, as I have made a speech during Ter-Petorsyan’s rally I have been fired. I will resist that trouble for several days”. By the way, yesterday the police closed the doors of some universities and did not let students take part in the rally. Even some students were detained but later they were set free. In many universities students and lecturers struck. Yesterday during the rally the participants divided into two groups and one of those groups walked to the general public prosecutor’s office to protest. Later they moved to the government building and back to the Liberty square. By the way, there were many policemen and security officers with shields and hand-weapons near the prosecutor’s office and the government building. They were demanding to set the detained students free. Citizens were looking out of their windows and joining their slogans. Yesterday it turned out that 7 war participants MPs had joined Ter-Petrosyan’s movement was well (RPA faction member Manvel Ghazaryan (the chairman of Vedi Alco), Hrant Grigoryan (general Manvel Grigoryan’s cousin), Seyran Saroyan, Armen Mkhitaryan, members of PA faction Karo Karapetyan, Tigran Stepanyan and independent deputy Rustam Gasparyan). Manvel Ghazaryan announced this information in the square and read the statement signed by those MPs. Later the participants, being led by Khachatur Sukiasyan, Hakob Hakobyan and the chairman of NT party Aram Karapetyan, walked to the CEC and handed over a statement signed by the powers supporting Levon Ter-Petrosyan. The mentioned statement writes that they have submitted over 300 letters concerning re-counting the votes, but only one of those letters has been proceeded so far. For instance, in a polling station it turned out that the commission had put over 100 ballot voted for Ter-Petrosyan on the invalid ballot stack. After that the commission stopped counting the ballots and was sure that the situation would be the same in other polling stations as well. The authors of the statement believe that if the CEC does not undertake any actions, it will become “the main tool for reproducing the cleptocracy” and will have to bear the half of the responsibility for the falsifications.