Epress.am News from Armenia
Yerevan-based Russian citizen Yelena Ovsyannikova (pictured) has filed a defamation and insult lawsuit against the Armenian Police, Deputy Police Chief Hunan Poghosyan, lawmaker Edmon Marukyan, as well as RA Police Chief’s advisor Narek Malyan, demanding a collective AMD 7 million in damages.
The woman claims the defendants insulted her during the sit-in protest against the hike in Armenian electricity prices on Yerevan’s central Baghramyan Avenue. On June 24, Obsyannikova said, seeing police officers armed with batons and shields, she urged them to avoid obeying their superiors’ orders and refrain from violence against the demonstrators. Upon seeing this, as stated by the plaintiff, Hunan Poghosyan went up to her and said, “I’ll have you know our police officers are quite horny, and you wander around here like this.”
The woman was then approached by MP Edmon Marukyan, who was part of the “human wall” between the protesters and police during the demonstration, and accused her of “provocative actions.”
A few days after the incident, Narek Malyan wrote on his Facebook page that Ovsyannikova was a “Ukrainian provocateur, a professional instigator and an international agent” who took part in unrests and riots in Syria, Ukraine, and Georgia, and “was trained in Turkey.” The official also alleged that the plaintiff “offered sex to the police officers on Baghramyan.”
Ovsyannikova’s lawyer, Tigran Yegoryan, said in an interview with Epress.am on Friday that 7 million drams, the statutory maximum compensation, was the least they could claim from the defendants: “The maximum [amount] was demanded since there was a systematic attack directed against our client, and it was carried out using administrative resources.”
Malyan’s subsequent announcement that he had posted those entries on his personal Facebook page and did not represent the Police, as stated by the attorney, is “just a household trick.”
Ovsyannikova’s second attorney, Lusine Hakobyan, told Epress.am that, in addition to insults, the officials showed discrimination against the plaintiff as a woman and a Russian by nationality; meanwhile, the Republic of Armenia has obligations under a number of international treaties to eliminate all forms of discrimination.
“It’s not a coincidence that, although she is a Russian, there was an attempt to present Yelena as a Ukrainian, thus alluding to the idea that ‘there was a Maidan happening in Armenia with the help of external forces’,” Hakobyan stated. The officials, she added, also aimed to tarnish the demonstration and prevent people from participating in it.
The first hearing in the case scheduled for October 16 was adjourned since RA Deputy Police Chief Hunan Poghosyan failed to appear in court, and Police representative Gor Harutyunyan was unable to answer the court’s question as to whether Poghosyan had been notified properly about the hearing.