Man Injured in Clashes with Armenian Police Unable to Remember His Name

A man of 40 was beaten and detained by Armenian police as demonstrators clashed with Armenian law enforcement who used water cannons and special means on Tuesday morning to disperse a sit-in outside the RA Presidential Residence against the latest hike in electricity tariff. As a result of the beating, the man is unable to remember his own name, Hetq.am correspondent Ani Hovhannisyan reported from a police station at Malatia-Sebastia administrative district of Yerevan.

“Our reporter inquired as to why an ambulance had not been called. The man, police claimed, had refused medical care, and was in this state prior to the detention,” Hetq.am reported.

Around 10 AM, police called an ambulance, and the man was taken to "Armenia" medical center, the agency said. According to preliminary information, the man has sustained a cranial trauma. 

Nazareth Karoyan, art critic, director of Armenian Institute for Contemporary Art, was also injured in the clashes; he was taken to the Surb Grigor Lusavorich Medical Center, Karoyan informed Epress.am.

Two other activists injured during the dispersal of the demonstration have also been transferred to the intensive care unit of the same hospital, Karoyan said. 

Late on Monday, after a three-day sit-in at Freedom Square in central Yerevan, protesters tried to march toward Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan’s office at 26 Baghramyan. However, hundreds of armed police officers, forming a barricade, closed the road, not allowing demonstrators to get any closer to the presidential palace. Protesters then sat in the middle of the road at the intersection of Baghramyan and Isahakyan streets, staging an impromptu sit-in outside the presidential office.