Epress.am News from Armenia
Deputy Head of the 3rd Unit of the Main Criminal Investigation Department of the RA Police, Head of the Department of Juvenile Affairs Colonel Nelly Duryan came to Baghramyan Avenue on Wednesday, July 1. The purpose of the visit was to talk to minors participating in the protest sit-in against the hike in electricity rates and to find out whether their parents were aware of their whereabouts.
The demonstration site, Duryan stated, was not the place for minors. However, people did not give the Colonel an opportunity to have private conversations with the children. A number of protesters and journalists surrounded her, asking where she was on June 23 when law enforcement officers detained children, used forced against them.
“When was I supposed to come? At 6 AM?,” Duryan tried to justify her absence. The protesters' question “why police beat juveniles?” was left unanswered, too. Duryan, instead, said “at that time minors should have been at home.”
“Before using water cannons, did you go around the place to find out how many minors there were?” one of the reporters' asked. The official did not answer this question either, stating she wanted to meet the organizer of the protest.
Demonstrators explained that there were no organizers, and the protest action was spontaneous. Protester Astghik Aghekyan then approached Duryan and announced that on June 23 her teenage daughter was struck by a police baton.
“I am a mother of a minor child. My daughter saw that her mother was being detained and ran up here. She was hit on the back with a baton, and some doctor slapped her on the back and said: "You're fine, go home.” What do you suggest? What should this child do?” Aghekyan asked.
The Juvenile Affairs Department Head had no response for these questions either; she advised Aghekyan to report the incident, if she wished.
Recall, during the violent crackdown of the sit-in on the morning of June 23 a plainclothes police officer used sexually abusive language towards Astghik Aghekyan and forcibly took her into custody. Aghekyan and her daughter were later transferred to the hospital.