Late Wednesday evening, February 27th, the police detained two young men at Freedom Square and took them down to Central Police Headquarters.

National Assembly Deputies Zaruhi Postanjyan and Stepan Safaryan immediately went to Police Headquarters to ascertain the reasons why the two were taken into custody. A group of individuals in civilian dress used physical force to remove the Deputies from the building. The same fate awaited members of the press and representatives of various NGO’s who had gone to the Police Headquarters to find out the circumstances of the incident. One of those in civilian dress even went so far as to grab the microphone away from a Radio Liberty reporter and toss it out a window.

All this took place in front of the eyes of the police standing by. Not only did the official police at the scene fail to intervene, they also failed to explain the presence of the unknown people in civilian dress who quickly fled after the incident. Monitors from the OSCE and staff from the Ombudsman’s Office were invited to visit the scene.

The two detained youths were later released. They spoke of being beaten by the police and requested that reporters not publish their names.