Epress.am News from Armenia
Vardges Gaspari, an Armenian National Congress (HAK) activist who was formerly imprisoned due to what is believed to be his political activities, has issued an open letter to RA Police Chief Alik Sargsyan, in which he outlines the incidents concerning his interactions with police officers on Oct. 2 and 3 when he conducted a one-person, 24-hour sit-in at Freedom Square.
In his letter, Gaspari holds the police chief accountable for the actions of his officers. In one incident, writes Gaspari, a plainclothes officer approached him and attempted to “provoke a dispute, conflict.” In another case, another officer stepped on his foot.
Though the officers didn’t directly state that they were doing the police chief’s bidding or even identify themselves, writes Gaspari, their “clumsy, ill-mannered and ignorant behavior completely matched the description of your criminal investigation employees.”
Gaspari explains how officers removed him from Freedom Square three times, driving him and dropping him off at the Karen Demirchyan Sports and Concerts Complex and each time, he returned to the square.
“However, apart from the aforementioned legal obligations, as a police chief and man, how do you look into your children’s eyes when in [the Yerevan neighborhood of] Malatia, 3 criminals, by continually beating Artyum Ghazaryan for one hour, killed him, and no police officer under your wing approached them? Yet you keep an entire brigade ready for a whole night in Freedom Square, in order to restrict the legal rights of a single demonstrator,” reads an excerpt from Vardges Gaspari’s open letter to Armenian police chief Alik Sargsyan.