Epress.am News from Armenia
Prominent Gyumri-based human rights defender Levon Barseghyan’s son, Hayk Barseghyan, was on Wednesday detained by police in downtown Yerevan after he tried to intervene and find out the cause of a brawl between several police officers and an unknown young man. Barseghyan was released from detention three hours later and has spoken to Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper about the details of the incident.
“My friend and I were sitting at a cafe when I saw 5-6 officers arguing with a young man. I got the impression that the guy was being intimidated and wanted to find out what was going on. I went out of the cafe, sat on the stairs just to be able to listen to the argument and intervene if there was a need. That’s when one of the officers switched his attention to me and said: ‘Stand up! Why are you sitting here?’ I replied: ‘Excuse me, could you introduce yourself, please?’ They they notices I had a knife on me and insisted I was carrying a cold weapon. I said: ‘No, this is my knife; it’s always on me.’”
The officers subsequently detained Barseghyan – who live-streamed the incident on Facebook and later refused to remove the recording from the website – on suspicion of carrying a cold weapon in public; he was held in the central police station of Yerevan for three yours. The officers confiscated Barseghyan’s knife “for examination” and promised to return it in 10 days.
“A knife has to correspond to a set of parameters in order to be considered a cold weapon. Mine is a camping knife, which does not fall under these parameters,” Barseghyan noted, adding that the officers had initially been very aggressive and disrespectful towards him. “They said: ‘Man, I have a family to care for. Why would you put the video on Facebook? Do you want me to get fired? Come here, let us see, is that a knife you’re carrying?”