The European Union is closely following ongoing developments in Yerevan and other cities. Citizens have a legitimate right to exercise freedom of assembly in a peaceful manner and in accordance with the law. State authorities have a duty to ensure public safety and health by applying the law in a fair and proportionate manner. It is important that all parties involved continue to show restraint and responsibility.
“Reject Serzh” initiative member Armen Grigoryan told a crowd of several thousand attending the second mass rally in Yerevan’s Republic Square that demonstrations opposed to yesterday’s election of Serzh Sargsyan as prime minister have taken place in Marseilles and Moscow.
After debating via the internet whether marching through the street of their hometown was prudent, given that former General Manvel Grigoryan (a ruling Republican Party of Armenia MP) runs the area like his private fiefdom, students took to streets to voice their opposition to yesterday’s election of Serzh Sargsyan as Armenia’s new prime minister.
Armenian President Armen Sarkissian today reappointed Vigen Sargsyan as defense minister and Edward Nalbandian as foreign minister.
Anti-Serzh Sargsyan protesters have marched to the Yerevan Municipal Building and are calling on Yerevan Mayor Taron Margaryan to come out and join them.
Rubik Vagharshakyan, one of the villagers, participated in the 1990s Artsakh War. He says that today's authorities are comfortably sitting in their chairs at the expense of people like himself.
Scores of young people from the towns of Armavir and Metsamor set off for Yerevan this morning to join the anti-Serzh Sargsyan protests taking place in the Armenian capital.
At a rally yesterday evening in Republic Square, Yelk Alliance MP Nikol Pashinyan called on citizens to paralyze the workings of the government.
On Tuesday I witnessed civil actions and vignettes of disobedience that I have never seen before in Armenia. For part of the day I was watching many of these events unfold in different places simultaneously thanks to several online live video feeds broadcast by Azatutyun.am and A1plus.am.
A Hetq reporter on the scene says that police and men in civilian dress are dispersing anti-Serzh Sargsyan protesters gathered in France Square and are loading some into nearby buses.
Ruslan Manukyan, a soldier serving in the Artsakh Defense Army, was killed today when a mine exploded at a defensive military outpost in north of the country, this according to the Artsakh Ministry of Defense.
Thousands packed Yerevan’s Republic Square yesterday evening to hear Nikol Pashinyan and others talk about the protests, originally launched to prevent Serzh Sargsyan from Armenia’s new prime minister, but which have morphed into a movement designed to paralyze the normal functioning of the government.
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