{"id":251299,"date":"2014-03-27T20:42:41","date_gmt":"2014-03-27T16:42:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=251299"},"modified":"2014-03-27T20:42:41","modified_gmt":"2014-03-27T16:42:41","slug":"shant-harutyunyan-couldnt-know-that-men-in-civilian-clothes-were-police-officers-attorney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2014\/03\/27\/shant-harutyunyan-couldnt-know-that-men-in-civilian-clothes-were-police-officers-attorney.html","title":{"rendered":"Shant Harutyunyan Couldn&#8217;t Know that Men in Civilian Clothes were Police Officers: Attorney"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">The preliminary investigative body in the case of Shant Harutyunyan and his friends, who were arrested almost 5 months ago, has not taken any investigatory action till today, said Harutyunyan&#39;s attorney, Inessa Petrosyan, at a press conference earlier today.&nbsp;<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tRecall, Harutyunyan is charged under RA Criminal Code Article 316 Section 2 (&quot;resistance to a representative of the authorities while in the line of duty or forcing him to perform obviously illegal actions, committed with violence or threat of violence&quot;), but, according to his attorney, in this article his deed does not constitute a crime and the accusation is unfounded.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tShant, added his lawyer, tried to express his opinion; he voiced his problems in the public square. &quot;And on that day [November 5, 2013, the day of his arrest], prior to entering the procession, he warned the police, so that they refrain from provoking the protestors. From the charges against him it appears that the so-called victims, it&#39;s clear, were in civilian clothing, and Shant couldn&#39;t have known that the people in civilian clothes were police officers,&quot; she said.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tPetrosyan said that over these past 5 months they hoped that this charge would be removed, but till today not only has it not been removed, but also the sentence is extended once every two months: &quot;instead of removing the accusation, they say that the preliminary investigation will be completed soon and the case will go to court.&quot;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t&quot;Let me add that there have been no confrontations. Shant refused to testify. Harutyunyan and the others are persecuted for their political views and not for committing a criminal offense. As a punitive measure and to have him fall in the eyes of society, Harutyunyan was moved to a mental institution, where he was kept for 20 days, knowing full well that even at the last examination it was proven that he is not mentally ill,&quot; she said.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tHovhannes Kocharyan, the attorney of Misak Arakelyan, who also was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/en\/2013\/11\/05\/clashes-in-central-yerevan-dozens-detained.html\"><span style=\"color:#0000CD;\"><strong>arrested on Nov. 5<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, said that the preliminary investigation failed to ensure a proper and objective investigation.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t&quot;During these months, we were unable to get any evidence or information that police officers suffered as a result of Misak Arakelyan&#39;s actions. There is no evidence that those explosives are ammunition, as a result of which police officers suffered,&quot; he said.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAccording to Kocharyan, the preliminary investigative body is not independent and cannot act objectively. &quot;Police officers are the victims in the case and investigating the case are police officers. I&#39;m not an optimist, and I don&#39;t think the accusation against my client will change to a more lenient article,&quot; he concluded.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAnother guest at the press conference, head of the Helsinki Citizens&#39; Assembly Vanadzor Office Artur Sakunts (pictured, left), said that if the authorities don&#39;t smarten up, protests and acts of (civil) disobedience will be organized for the duration of the trial in court. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;[Shant] Harutyunyan and the others are persecuted for their political views and not for committing a criminal offense&#8230;&#8221;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":251272,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[36495,52115,54396,51376],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251299"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}