In the wee hours of the morning of March 1st, Gagik Shamshyan, a photojournalist for the papers Chorrord Ishkhanutyun and Aravot, was in Freedom Square. He had decided to do a photo story about how the people at the sit-in were preparing to greet the first day of spring. However, the police who had arrived to disperse the crowd wound up severly beating the photographer.

Shamshyan recounts that, “At about 6 a.m. vehicles of the Traffic Patrol and the “OMON” (Special Police Detachment) had completely surrounded the area around Opera Square, parking in close proximity to one another. I left the Square to get a better view of the entire area to photograph.”

A bit later he heard curses and women’s screams emanating from the Square. Returning there he saw that the police and special detachment personnel, equipped with shields, rubber truncheons and electro-shock devices, were mercilessly beating the demonstrators.

“With my camera I was able to zoom in on an OMON soldier while he was using his army knife to cut the ropes of a tent and turn it upside down. He did this without even knowing who was inside the tent. They started to beat those people with their clubs” the photojournalist states.

At the time he says he remembered the lines of the poet Tumanyan from the work “The King and the Peddler” -  “Water in the front, a sword behind; grief, wails and confusion.”

“I decided it best to photograph that massacre from Swan Lake with the statue of Tumanyan in the background. I shot 4-5 pics when a bunch of policemen, evidently noticing my flash go off, started cursing me and attacked me. One of the Special Forces guys was there with blood flowing from his head. He told me that I would pay for that blood. He snatched the camera away from me and struck me.”

Gagik Shamshyan, who due to his work knows all the high-ranking police officials on a first name basis, showed his press credentials and demanded that he be allowed to ply his professional trade without hindrance.

However Police Colonel Robert Melqonyan, who was present, gave the following order - beat this guy so that you don’t leave any traces.

Arman Harutyunyan, a police officer from the 6th Administrative District and who is married to the singer Shushan Petrosyan, handcuffed the photographer and throwing him to the ground started to beat him around the ribs, waist and feet with the help of some 15-20 other officers.

“My phone was ringing all the time. One of the ring tones was from Beethoven’s Victory symphony and the other was “Struggle, struggle until the end”. This enraged the officers even more. They said, ‘Ok, you want a struggle?’ and cursing me out they began hitting me. It was Edik Galstyan, the deputy Police Chief from the Nork-Marash Division who said, ‘these are confusing times, let’s poke out his eye!’ He then bent over and wanted to stick his finger in my eye.”

At that moment Garen Babakekhyan, the Deputy Police Chief from the 6th Administrative District, said, ‘Leave the guy alone.’

They left Gagik on the ground for about 20 minutes and then took him to the Yerevan Police Office and then to Central Headquarters. Once there, the police wrote up a report saying that he was taken into custody because he resisted the police and had slandered them. Mr. Shamshyan refused to sign any document. Hours later he was transferred to the Kanaker-Zeytun Police Station. It was Artur Abrahamyan, the Head of the Criminal Investigations Unit, that had Gagik stripped naked and searched.

Having been left been left alone in the room, Gagik was able to telephone his colleagues and Armen Harutyunyan, Armenia’s Human Rights Ombudsman. “Ten minutes late I heard loud voices. The police were telling the Ombudsman that no reporter by the last name of Shamshyan had been brought to the station, while the Ombudsman was claiming just the opposite.”

A bit later the journalist, in the presence of the Chief Investigator, related everything to the Ombudsman; how he was cursed, ridiculed and subject to psychological torment as soon as he arrived at the Kanaker Police Station. 

The Investigations Chief, responding to the Ombudsman, immediately gave orders to release the journalist saying that he didn’t make the decision to take Gagik into custody: ‘the decision came from the top, they brought him in’.

After A. Harutyunyan left the photojournalist’s physical condition suddenly took a turn for the worse from the beating that morning. He even lost consciousness once. The emergency doctors said that he immediately had to be taken to hospital.

The police tried to take him to the Saint Grigor Lusavorich Hospital in Nor-Nork in their car but Gagik refused. The journalist was certain that, “That’s the hospital belonging to Serzh Sargsyan’s in-laws. They’ll either write up an incorrect medical history for me or never register me in the books.”

They took the journalist to another clinic where he received medical treatment. Afterwards, he was returned to the Kanaker-Zeytun Police Station. He was finally released at 11:30 p.m. when an employee from the Ombudsman’s office signed off on the papers.

“They never returned my camera to me after confiscating it at the Opera.  They even didn’t return my memory sticks when they gave back my other items. They claimed that I never was carrying such a device when they took me in. Three days later the Investigations Chief called me up and said, ‘By the way, we found two memory sticks under the desk. Come and get them’. But they had been destroyed beyond repair. All those valuable photos and information was irretrievably lost.”

Gagik Shamshyan concludes that, “After all these days, law enforcement hasn’t done a thing. I’ve gone on record stating that my photo equipment was confiscated, that I was beaten, cursed at and morally abused. I’ve supplied them with specific names. Even the Ombudsman pointed out that they’ve hindered my work. It doesn’t matter...they are allowed to violate their own laws.”