Epress.am News from Armenia
Arayik Khandoyan, one of the opposition gunmen who kept a Yerevan police station under a two-week siege last summer, has ended his two-week long hunger strike he had gone on in support of Sasna Tsrer jailed supporter Artur Sargsyan, according to a statement issued by Khandoyan’s lawyer Arayik Papikyan. Additionally, the oppositionist has called on Sargsyan to follow suit.
“Dear Artur, I’m ending my hunger strike and asking you to do the same. We have to stay strong both in body and mind because. We have an unfinished business which we can only carry out by not giving in to the traitorous regime. I am therefore asking you to end your hunger strike and concentrate all your strength on saving our sacred Motherland,” Khandoyan said through his lawyer.
On July 29, Artur Sargsyan drove through the police cordon around the Sasan Tsrer-occupied Yerevan police station to deliver food to the armed group and was recently jailed again on suspicion of aiding the gunmen. He has been on a hunger strike since his arrest in early February.
At the start of the National Assembly’s four-day session yesterday, non-partisan MP Edmon Marukyan collected 26 lawmakers’ signatures and subsequently submitted the petition to the General Prosecutor’s office requesting that Sargsyan be released from detention.