Political activist Andreas Ghukasyan, who ran for president of Armenia in 2013, was labelled the decision by the Special Investigative Service (SIS) to drop a criminal case, charging Yerevan police officers of exercising undue physical force against reporters and citizens in the aftermath of the July 2016 seizure of a Yerevan police station by the armed Sasna Dzrer group, as illegal.

Police attacked protesters on July 29, 2016 in Yerevan’s Sari Tagh neighborhood, and manhandled reporters on the scene.

Ghukasyan, who was detained for 22 months  on charges of fomenting public disorder and calling for violence against the police in the wake of the Sasna Dzrer takeover of a Yerevan police building in 2016, writes in a Facebook post that the decision by the SIS to drop the case, arguing that no offending police officers have been identified, flies in the face of substantial video evidence to the contrary.

Ghukasyan writes that the decision is all the more perplexing as it comes immediately after the visit of Dunja Mijatović, the  Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, to Armenia.

Ghukasyan says he is ready to assist all those injured by the police on July 29, 2016 who want the SIS to rescind its decision.