Yesterday on March 26 starting from 6 p.m. the supporters of Levon Ter-Petrosyan held their consecutive “political” stroll-action, which was preliminarily titled as a day of reading.
As it was planned the participants of the actions were supposed to stroll in the Northern Avenue and audibly read parts from newspapers or books. The police hindered the reading by saying that they violate the public order. At nearly 5:50 p.m. the police started the detention of RA citizens walking in the Northern Avenue. About 100-150 citizens were walking in the avenue and the number of the policemen was considerably higher. The number of detentions rose drastically, with dozens of people, many of them women, bundled into police vehicles and driven away from the pedestrian avenue. The police wouldn’t say anything to the citizens. They would just enter into their arms and pull them to their vehicles. The citizens were really quiet and didn’t violate the public order. For a moment the detention process became so active that the journalists wouldn’t manage to film the detainees. Several people would simultaneously be detained. Two broad-shouldered would approach several girls and would simply steal one of them, put them in vehicles and take them away (as turned out to the police department). The police also detained a young man, who was walking with his wife on the avenue. After the noise, which his wife made on the street the head of the Criminal Investigation Department Artyom Babayan approached her and told her that the police had made a mistake and that her husband would soon be released. How does the police determine, who to detain? Do they look at people’s faces or what? To this question Babayan answered that it depends on the professionalism of the policemen. The police detained a citizen strolling at Liberty Square with his dog. When our journalists tried to find out whether the arrest was warranted the policemen threatened to take them into custody. Just at that moment a high-ranking policeman approached the group and ordered his inferiors to let the journalists stroll at the square. Why do the police detain people who are out to walk? As a response to the question of the reporters, deputy-head of the Arabkir Police Department Valeri Osipyan offered to apply to the media service of the RA police. Yesterday among the detainees was a former correspondent of the H2 Souren Sargsyan, who about a month ago declared that he was joining Ter-Petrosyan’s movement. Hranush Kharatyan’s son, Arsen Kharatyan was also among the detainees. At that moment member of the PPA Ruzan Khachatryan was also on the Northern Avenue. She at that moment called the members of the Heritage faction and told them to get in touch with the OSCE Ambassadors, human rights watch organizations and others. The police was listening to this conversation and after awhile it seemed that they loosened the detention process. On learning the latest arrests Heritage Party MPs Armen Martirosyan and Larissa Alaverdyan left for the avenue. “With such steps the authorities further escalate the situation,” countered Alaverdyan. The crowd of people started to get bigger. Despite the fact that it was agreed to stroll and read books the police succeeded in hindering this process. The protesters were dispersed soon after 1-1.5 hours. They agreed to meet at the same time on the next day. The police detained some of the dispersed citizens as well. By approximate calculations the police detained about 40 citizens, who were out strolling yesterday. The majority of them were women and young girls. The police has even tried to detain a disabled woman with a walking stick as well.