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Yerevan Residents Protest Outside Government Building: Demand Housing Compensation
Chanting “prime minister, prime minister”, residents of Yerevan’s Kond neighborhood and the area adjacent to the Firdous street market today protested outside the Government Building in Yerevan demanding to know when they would receive compensation for their houses dismantled in the name of eminent domain.
The protesters, seeing that their cries would not get the prime minister to come down, entered the street in an attempt to block traffic.
Police immediately rushed in and removed them.
Kond resident Vardan Karakhanyan told Hetq that he’s been waiting eight years for compensation.
“I was born in the Shahoumyan district of Karabakh. We had a three story house. The Turks came and seized it. Then we came to Yerevan, to Kond, and built another three story house. They came and tore it down,” Karakhanyan said.
When this reporter asked Karakhanyan if the government had told him when he would get an apartment in compensation, the former Kond resident said that authorities keep telling him that they have no money.
“On fourteen occasions the president of this country got out of his car and told us that there is no money. I’ve taken the issue to everyone except the U.N Secretary General,” said Karakhanyan, adding that some 200 families are waiting to be compensated.
Before the protesters left, Hayk Davtyan, chief advisor to the prime minister, approached them and said that eleven Firdous neighborhood residents would receive compensation tomorrow.
This just intensified the ire of the remaining residents who demanded to know when they would be paid.
“Stop deceiving us. We want to meet with the prime minister. How any years must we wait?” asked one of the protesters.
In response, Davtyan said that the prime minister was apprised of all developments.
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