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I think the accusation brought up against Shant Harutyunyan, whereby, the latter exerted violence against a Police official, is ungrounded”, stated Chairman of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor Artur Sakunts in a talk with NewsBook.am. According to him, the accusation is not grounded, since with his uniform on the police official must carry out service during public events by keeping public order, he must apparently come up as a person with such authorizations, so that it becomes clear for citizens, who they are dealing with and how to behave. Such an incident took place on April 9 during post-electoral developments, persons dressed in civil uniforms continually jogged and exerted violence against the activists in the presence of the police officials and remained unpunished, according to the practice.

It should be informed that according to Article 12 of the RA law on Police, while ensuring protection of public order, the police officers shall be obliged to wear specially defined uniforms on the visible part of which insignia enabling personal identification of a police officer should be posted. It should be noted that on November 5 Chairman of “National Joint Initiative” Shant Harutyunyan together with his hundreds of supporters with Guy Fox masks and truncheons had started an “anonymous march” towards the President’s residence. However, the march was stopped on Mashtots avenue, where clashes took place, there were explosions due to which 16 people were injured including 8 police officers, 20 people were arrested, 6 out of which were released, charges were bought against the others and some were detained.

Shant Harutyunyan was detained and charged under Part 2 of Article 316 on violence dangerous for life or health against a representative of authorities or close relatives related to performing their official duties punished with imprisonment for the term of 5 to 10 years.

Source: Newsbook.am