Armenia: different political forces condemn beating of oppositionists

Eduard Sharmazanov, press secretary of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia has condemned the October 27 attack on young opposition activists, treating as unacceptable any attempt of human rights violation. Oppositionists, in the turn, accuse the authorities.

The attack on young activists of the oppositional Armenian National Congress (ANC) was also criticized Stepan Safaryan, a board member of the opposition party "Heritage". "Law enforcers should have been ready to instantly react to any violence applied to people. This case is an evidence of continued lawlessness of the fact that no lessons have been learnt from the events of last year's March 1 by the authorities. On the contrary, the same continues today," Mr Safaryan said in his interview to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The ANC has disseminated a statement full of tough criticism of Armenian authorities and emphasizing that the authorities are in charge of the incident.

Let us remind you that on December 27 in Yerevan, at about 5:30 p.m., a group of young oppositionists who were holding pre-election campaign in favour of Nikol Pashinyan were approached by unidentified persons who demanded to stop the action.

After the campaigners refused, they attacked the young men and began beating them using iron rods and knuckles. Vaagn Gevorkyan, Saak Muradyan, Sarkis Gevorkyan, Tevos Matevosyan and Sergey Gasparyan were hospitalized with different gravity wounds. Representative of the ANC Vladimir Karapetyan who came to the venue also suffered.

So far, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent could not contact with and get comments from the Mayor of Yerevan or his representatives.