{"id":279589,"date":"2017-03-16T12:22:43","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T08:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/epress.am\/?p=279589"},"modified":"2017-03-16T12:22:43","modified_gmt":"2017-03-16T08:22:43","slug":"group-of-demonstrators-might-be-fined-for-supporting-prominent-civil-activist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2017\/03\/16\/group-of-demonstrators-might-be-fined-for-supporting-prominent-civil-activist.html","title":{"rendered":"Group of Demonstrators Might Be Fined for Supporting Prominent Civil Activist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Armenia&#8217;s Administrative Court is hearing the cases against a group of young men who in February last year <strong><span style=\"color: #003366;\"><a style=\"color: #003366;\" href=\"http:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2016\/02\/24\/citizens-hold-solidarity-action-condemn-violence-against-armenian-political-prisoner-video.html\">held a solidarity action<\/a><\/span><\/strong> outside the presidential palace in Yerevan in support of prominent civic activist Vardges Gaspari. The defendants, for their part, have filed a counterclaim, insisting on the illegality of the police actions against them.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In February 2016, after Vardges Gaspari, who was imprisoned at the time, <strong><span style=\"color: #003366;\"><a style=\"color: #003366;\" href=\"http:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2016\/02\/24\/gaspari-subjected-to-torture-inhuman-treatment-in-prison-lawyer-says.html\">announced<\/a><\/span><\/strong> that he had been subjected to violence and torture in jail, a group of about ten people gathered outside the presidential residence and lay down on the ground in front of its gates \u2013 a tribute to Gaspari\u2019s preferred form of civil disobedience. Authorities subsequently instituted administrative proceedings against the demonstrators, accusing them of disobeying police lawful orders.<\/p>\n<p>On March 15, the Administrative Court held the last hearting on demonstrator Paylak Tevanyan&#8217;s case, with the ruling scheduled to be issued on April 4. His lawyer Ara Gharagyozyan said in a conversation with Epress.am that they not only demanded to dismiss the police claim but have also filed a counterclaim; \u201cWe believe that the demonstrators&#8217; rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and personal inviolability have been violated. After the illegal detention, lawyers were not even allowed into the police station [to meet with the demonstrators]. We were allowed in only after the arrival of [opposition lawmaker] Nikol Pashinyan, but the administrative proceedings had already been completed, and we could not do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If Tevanyan&#8217;s counterclaim is granted, the young man with file a compensation claim against the police in a civil court. Speaking to Epress.am, Tevanyan said they had submitted a video to the Administrative Court on Wednesday, which shows his lawyer being forcibly prevented from entering the Arabkir police station. \u201cI was detained when I approached the officers to find out which station the others were being taken to. They had no intention of detaining me before that,\u201d Tevanyan added.<\/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>If Tevanyan&#8217;s counterclaim is granted, the young man with file a compensation claim against the police in a civil court&#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":279575,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[66033,51049,66030],"tags":[23194,66690,16528],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279589"}],"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=279589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}