Epress.am News from Armenia
1:30 am Organizers of the rally outside the seized police headquarters have asked those gathered to come back to the same spot at 7pm on Wednesday. Police officers have also begun to leave the territory.
Protesters' march through central Yerevan
1:00 am Eyewitnesses have told Epress.am that the demonstrators on Tigran Mets avenue were being dispersed by police officers, including ones wearing civilian clothes, and pushed toward the railway station nearby.
12:45 am Some of the marchers returned to Khorenatsi street while the rest were negotiating with police officers on a central Yerevan avenue. Founding Parliament anti-government movement member Alek Yenigomshyan announced that if communication with the “Daredevils of Sasun” was not reestablished immediately then he would personally enter the territory of the seized police building. Shortly after Yenigomshyan’s announcement, the marchers moved towards Khorenatsi.
11:14 pm Supporters of the “Daredevils of Sasun” armed group again rallied Tuesday evening in an area adjacent to the cordoned off section of Yerevan’s Khorenatsi street leading to the seized patrol police regiment headquarters, despite an earlier statement issued by Armenia’s police, demanding that the organizers moved the rally to a different location to avoid “the real and imminent threat of an escalation of tension and the danger facing public safety.”
Hours ahead of the assembly, a heavy police presence was visible in the area, while Gyumri Council of Elders member Levon Barseghyan claimed in his speech during the rally that several civilians had already been detained by plain clothes police officers. Barseghyan announced that those detained were Mher Minasyan, Melik Davtyan and a young man named Ashot. A rally participant soon provided Epress.am with a video footage of a man being forcibly shoved into a car without a license plate.
Opposition activist Davit Sanasaryan, for his part, took to the stage with a call to law enforcement officers’ parents. “Do not allow your sons to protect those who suck the blood out of the people. Do not let your sons become criminals!” he said.
About an hour into the rally, the demonstrators decided to again march through the streets of Yerevan. They are currently walking in downtown Yerevan, chanting “Free, Independent Armenia” and yelling at people to join them.