Despite the rainy weather, the public rally of the “Impeachment” alliance, the “Republic” and “New Times” political parties held near the Matenadaran on Wednesday was probably the highest attended rally in Armenia in the past three to four years. Member of the forum for intellectuals and academician Rafael Ghazaryan was among the participants.
Recalling the liberation of Shushi on May 9, 1992, the speakers noticed that many of the people who helped gain the victory are today either murdered or in seclusion. Commander of the special squad of Shushi, Zhirair Sefilyan, is in prison; Samvel Babayan was imprisoned; Commander-in-Chief (sparapet) Vazgen Sargsyan was assassinated; and first president of the Republic of Armenia and commander-in-chief of the Armenian Armed Forces Levon Ter-Petrosyan is in seclusion. Vahagn Khachatryan announced that there are so many violations that it is possible to either recognize the elections, or at least the registration of some political parties, as invalid. He said that based on their calculations, no more than 800,000 people may participate in the elections. So, according to him, “there is no such thing as elections”. Gegham Harutyunyan from the “Republic” party announced that it is time to take action. According to him, the people are against a “opposition assigned to act its part” and the “5 percents ring like 5 pennies” (have no worth). Leader of “Republic” party Aram Z. Sargsyan announced that whoever did not join the proposal to go to the elections under the united list can still justify himself in front of the people. According to him, they are forgiven and may come and join them now. Mentioning that Robert Kocharyan did not like what happened in Georgia and Ukraine, Sargsyan said the following to the authorities:
“We will forget about all the frauds you have committed, but don’t commit fraud on May 12. Kochayran, if you falsify things on May 12, then you will really get it.”
In his speech, leader of “New Times” party Aram Karapetyan mentioned that he had received a letter from Sashik Aghazaryan from Moscow in which the following is said:
“I was the one who gave money to Alexander Arzumanyan. Do you have anything to say?”
According to Karapetyan, Aghazaryan mentioned in his letter that he had not been involved in politics until now, but what happened forced him to get involved. There was also an announcement that the alliance and the parties were going to meet on May 13 at Freedom Square starting from 2 p.m., and the meeting of the opposition will begin at 5 p.m. If the elections are not falsified, the oppositionists will rejoice; but if they are falsified, then during that meeting they will decide how to continue the struggle.
After the public rally, thousands of demonstrators marched towards the National Security Service building located on Nalbandyan Street with the demand to release former Armenian Foreign Minister and founder of the “Civil Disobedience” movement Alexander Arzumanyan. The police were forcing the demonstrators to walk on one side of the street, but there were so many demonstrators that it was very difficult to move forward in an area of a couple of meters. In the end, the police gave way and the entire street of Sayat-Nova was full of demonstrators. However, when the demonstrators approached Nalbandyan Street, the police once again forced them to march on one side of the street, which was simply impossible because the street was very narrow, there were cars parked on the sides and there were tens of thousands of demonstrators. As was seen in the events that followed, there were many provocateurs among them. Besides that, there were many “district boys” mixed with the policemen and other “hoodlums” who started to curse the demonstrators, using the most profane words. Things were already starting to get out of hand. A conflict arose between the police and the demonstrators. The police knocked them down and started beating them. They arrested many and took them to unknown locations. They didn’t take into consideration age, sex, or the fact that there could be journalists among them. After a while, a couple of hundred other policemen came to help their fellow colleagues. Fire extinguishers were used, however the demonstrators did not concede. Some unknown people were screaming “don’t run away”, but the demonstrators did not even show any sign of trying to do so. Despite the efforts of the police, the demonstrators did not leave and continued to scream “im-peach-ment, “free-dom”, etc.
Leaders of the above-mentioned opposition parties started to hold talks with the policemen to release the arrested, saying that they would not leave until everyone was released. The demonstrators stood as long as all the arrested were released. After their release, the demonstrators moved towards Freedom Square yelling “Let’s go to the finish”, “Struggle, struggle until the end”, “Leave, idiots”, etc. It was at Freedom Square where Aram Karapetyan announced that if the policemen “are going to attack us like bandits, they will get it from us.” Nikol Pashinyan announced:
“Today, we showed them who the rabbit is and who the lion is in the country.” He gave the demonstrators his mobile phone number and asked each one of them to call him if the policemen arrest or bother any one of them regarding the demonstration.