Epress.am News from Armenia
Activist Hayk Vilfinyan, who was detained Tuesday morning during the brutal dispersal of the demonstration in Yerevan against the rise in electricity rate and taken to a police station in the Armenian town of Ashtarak, has just been released from police custody. Note, the 237 detainees are gradually being released from various police stations in the Armenian capital and surrounding towns.
In an interview with Epress.am, Vilfinyan said he was questioned as a witness in the criminal case launched for hooliganism. He is currently discussing with his lawyers the police's demand of taking him to a blood alcohol test, the activist informed.
Note, the Helsinki Citizens' Assembly Vanadzor Office had reported earlier that police were trying to unjustifiably and unlawfully test the detainees for presence in the body of drugs and alcohol. The organization had urged the people to refuse to undergo the tests and called on the police to stop these illegal actions.
The rights of the detainees have been violated while in police custody, Haykuhi Harutyunyan, President of "Protection of Rights without Borders" NGO, claimed, coming out of a police station: Police have seized their phones, did not allow them to contact their relatives, and kept them in custody for more than 7 hours.
There were multiple bruises on detainee Taguhi Torosyan, Harutyunyan said; however, these injuries were not logged by police.
Opposition MP Nikol Pashinyan, in turn, visited Nor-Nork police department and informed that there was a minor among the detainees in this particular station. The 14-year-old boy had been brought in along with his mother. Some of the detainees, the MP said, had medical issues: an ambulance doctor has diagnosed several people with internal bleeding and urged them to be taken to hospital.
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.