Arrested HAK activist Tigran Arakelyan issued a statement today saying that he was ending the hunger strike he began on July 6 to protest his arrest by police the day before. On July 5, 2009, police arrested the 28 year-old HAK activist after summoning him to the Kentron Police Station. There, police officers testified that Mr. Arakelyan defied their orders to desist and that they even attacked them on July 1, while the group was publicizing a rally to be held by HAK the next day. On July 6 Mr. Arakelyan announced that he was starting a hunger strike to protest his arrest. In today's statement, Mr. Arakelyan says that he and his friends, according to the letter of the law, were making the public aware of the opposition meeting sanctioned by the Yerevan municipality the following day and that they were attacked by a "group of bandits in plainclothes". "The nest day, July 6 at 10:00 a.m., I declared a hunger strike in protest of my illegal arrest. The same day, my friends on the HHZh party board also declared an open-ended hunger strike in my defense," the statement reads. "Given that the court has illegally sentenced me to two months detention, and fearing for the health of my friends, who are indispensible in the struggle against this regime of gangsters, I am ending my hunger strike and urge that my friends do the same," Mr. Arakelyan's statement ends.