A maverick Armenian opposition activist and more than three dozen of his supporters were detained in downtown Yerevan on Tuesday, November 5 in violent clashes with riot police that followed what he called an attempt to carry out an anti-government “revolution”.
The several dozen protesters armed with wooden sticks, stones and homemade stun grenades and flares tried to march through the city center after a sit-in in Liberty Square organized by Tseghakron party leader, Shant Harutyunyan. Many of them wore Guy Fawkes masks, a symbol of resistance, those who identify themselves as Anonymous, RFE/RL Armenian service said.
The protest swiftly descended into chaos as the crowd clashed with police officers as well as several plainclothes men standing in their way on Mashtots Avenue, one of Yerevan’s main thoroughfares. Traffic through the street was blocked as a result.
Seeking to break the police cordon, the protesters used sticks and set off the deafening explosives that caused heavy smoke. Security forces were able to contain and disperse the aggressive crowd only after calling in police reinforcements. Helped by special police units, they made scores of arrests in the process.
The first deputy chief of the Armenia police, Hunan Poghosyan, and the head of Yerevan’s police department, Ashot Karapetyan, personally oversaw the operation at the scene. A police statement issued later in the day said that 37 individuals, including Harutyunyan, were taken into custody. It said several policemen were injured in the clashes but gave no details.
The statement blamed Harutyunyan for the violence. It said that the veteran activist, known for his hardline nationalist rhetoric in the past, was repeatedly warned by the police in recent days to “discontinue his imprudent behavior and calls for illegal actions.”
Harutyunyan, who is not affiliated with any major political party, moved into Liberty Square with a group of his supporters late last week. He declared that they are launching a “revolution” aimed at bringing down Armenia’s current leadership denounced by him as corrupt and undemocratic.
According to Armenia Today, initially, the march was meant to be timed to the Anonymous rally held around the world.
Hacker collective Anonymous mark Guy Fawkes Day (November 5) as a worldwide day of protests and cyber attacks against governments, banks and security firms.
