{"id":268935,"date":"2015-11-02T14:21:30","date_gmt":"2015-11-02T10:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=268935"},"modified":"2015-11-02T14:23:35","modified_gmt":"2015-11-02T10:23:35","slug":"officials-see-no-grounds-to-prosecute-armenian-police-officers-who-used-forced-on-protesting-parents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2015\/11\/02\/officials-see-no-grounds-to-prosecute-armenian-police-officers-who-used-forced-on-protesting-parents.html","title":{"rendered":"Officials See No Grounds to Prosecute Police Officers Who Used Force On Protesting Parents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t<em><span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">Nana Muradyan and Irina Ghazaryan, mothers of two Armenian soldiers who died during military service in 2010, have filed a complaint with a Yerevan court demanding that criminal proceedings be initiated against police officers who used excessive force against them in spring, 2015.&nbsp;<\/span><\/em>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/en\/2015\/05\/13\/mothers-of-dead-soldiers-attacked-and-provoked-by-armenian-police-video.html\"><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">On May 13, 2015<\/span><\/a>, law enforcement officers forcibly removed five demonstrating parents, including the plaintiffs, from the sidewalk in front of the Armenian presidential residence. As a result of the police&#39;s violent actions, the two women sustained physical injuries; a criminal case was initiated and subsequently terminated by Armenian Special Investigation Service (SIS)\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tMuradyan and Ghazaryan appealed against the SIS&#39; decision at the General Prosecutor&#39;s office, however, the prosecutor found the basis for termination substantiated.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tDuring the first hearing on November 2, Kentron and Nork-Marash district court judge Gagik Poghosyan decided to send the case to the first instance court of Arabkir and Qanaqer-Zeytun administrative district on the grounds that both the presidential residence and the SIS are located in Arabkir.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tTalking to an Epress.am reporter after the court hearing, public prosecutor Petrosyan commented on the officials initial decision to close the case. &ldquo;There were sufficient reasons to open a criminal case; however, there were not enough grounds to press charges against the police officers. The case was terminated due to insufficient evidence and lack of criminal intent,&rdquo; he said.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe plaintiffs, however, claim that the decision not to initiate criminal proceedings was politically motivated since a video from the scene clearly shows police officers using force against the protesters. Forensic medical examination findings also confirmed the presence of injuries on the victims&#39; bodies.<\/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>The plaintiffs, however, claim that the decision not to initiate criminal proceedings was politically motivated since a video from the scene clearly shows police officers using force against the protesters. Forensic medical examination&#8230;<!-- 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":268931,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268935"}],"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=268935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}