Epress.am News from Armenia
Laura Zakaryan, a cousin of Sasna Tsrer armed group member and Karabakh war veteran Pavel Manukyan, was strip-searched at the Yerevan Nork police station, where she was taken after a July 12 Sasna Tsrer court hearing, the woman told Armlur.am.
Zakaryan was detained by police officers for trying to take an Armenian flag attached with needles inside the courtroom. “The flags weren’t even mine. I saw them on some people by the courthouse and took one. I had asked the officers if it were fine that I take the flags inside, and they had told me they saw no issues there,” the woman says in an interview with Armlur.
Nevertheless, when Zakaryan tried to enter the courthouse, police officers standing by the entrance began asking questions about the needles and subsequently took the woman to the Nork police station to draw up a protocol.
“I believe that I was especially targeted by police, because another woman was allowed to leave the needles behind and enter the courtroom. And while it’s true that the officers at the station did not talk to me rudely, but still they forced me to strip down and humiliated me for a couple of needles,” the woman says.