Police Dragged Me on the Ground, Called Me Insane, Says Opposition Activist

Armenian National Congress (HAK) activist Vardges Gaspari was staging a protest during the military parade marking 20 years of Armenian independence yesterday when he was forcibly removed from Yerevan’s Republic Square.

The opposition activist recounted his story to Epress.am today.

“During the military parade, I held a poster on which it was written that ironic [or ridiculous] is a parade for an army in which more people die from bullets fired by our own soldiers than those fired by the enemy. I was standing on my own outside the government building, when suddenly someone in plainclothes came, attacked [me]  and stole my poster. At that time, I lay on the ground. Red berets [Armenia’s Police Patrol Service] led by Valeriy Osipyan appeared and dragged me to the Hanrapetutyun [Republic Square] metro station and they weren’t letting me go forward from there. Osipyan was saying, ‘He’s mentally ill.’ Regarding this matter, I have prepared a statement [to report] a crime, as well as a separate statement for that expression of Osipyan’s, which is a gross violation of the law,” Gaspari said.