Epress.am News from Armenia
Yerevan street vendors continue protest in front of Yerevan City Hall regarding a recent decision by the municipality to ban street trade. Also on the scene were a few dozen police officers lead by Khachik Avetisyan, the deputy chief of the police’s patrol service.
“You gathering here is meaningless, dear people, go, do your work,” said Avetisyan.
“We don’t have work, where should we go? They’re not allowing us to earn our daily bread. I’m going to leave this place, or it remains for me to go and pour petrol and light myself on fire. One month, I can’t look into my children’s eyes, they don’t have bread to eat,” complained one of the street vendors.
Protestors had stood for quite a long time, a few hours, a few meters from the front of the Yerevan City Hall main entrance, shouting “Shame! We want bread.”
During the entire time, a chain of police officers prohibited demonstrators to move toward the building’s main entrance, while other officers filmed the process.
One of the demonstrators removed from her pocket her membership card to the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, which she soon shred, threw the pieces on the floor and stomped on. “Once I used to be proud of this, but now I am embarrassed that I have this… I announce that I’m throwing it on the ground and trampling on it.”
Another woman had brought flowers with her: she began to sell them on the spot and a few purchased the “flowers brought from Karabakh.”
“Dear people, you are intelligent people, you have your demands and there’s no need to listen to every riffraff,” said Avetisyan.
At the end of their demonstration, those gathered announced that they are giving the authorities a day to resolve the issue, then they’ll return on Jan. 26 at 1 pm.
“”We are going to bring with us our wares and we are going to sell them in front of city hall, and we call on all citizens to come to city hall to purchase goods, we promise there’ll be very affordable prices,” they said.