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“They forced me into a police car; as I pulled out my head and said: “People, come out to the streets”, I got a hard blow on my face from a red-beret police officer, they punched me on the nose and mouth. I swore. They closed the door and started hitting me on the head, ribs, legs; they tortured me. Even when I lost conscience, they carried on hitting me”, Davit Sanasaryan, a Heritage (‘Zharangutyun’) Party member told in his interview to Medilab.

Yesterday, he and several dozens of other persons suffered violence and degrading treatment on the part of the police.

Note that yesterday people spontaneously gathered in Liberty Square in support of ‘Sasna Tsrer’ detachment which carried out an armed attack on the Erebuni Patrol and Guard Service Regiment on July 17 and seized it. During the attack, a policeman was killed. The public struggles for the issue to be resolved without any bloodshed and victims.

Yesterday, the police officers forced Sanasaryan into a car during the march in Freedom Square and then took him to the area of the internal troops division; according to Sanasaryan, on their way there, the police officers tortured him in the car as well.

“They put the handcuffs on me with the narrowest ring and my hands swelled. They said: “Put him down, let him kiss my boots.” I lost consciousness; they poured water on me and carried on torturing me. Then they just threw me out of the car on the ground of the military unit. I felt bad and told them to call the ambulance; they refused to do so and said that they had a physician there. I said I didn’t trust him since he was one of them, those people in uniform. Then as they examined me and saw that my blood pressure had changed and my heart was failing, they poured some remedies into my mouth.”

Apart from Davit Sanasaryan, Andranik Aslanyan and Artur Minasyan, who attended the public discussion and march in Liberty Square yesterday, “deserved” violence by the police as well.

Andranik Aslanyan’s back entirely bears traces of violence.

Andranik told ‘Azatutyun’ (Liberty) radio station that the police officers forced him into the car by beating and swearing at him.

“They forced me into the car by twisting my hands. I saw them spitting on Davo. They lay me on the ground, put a boot before me and said “Kiss it!” They kicked me on the head saying, ”Do you think it’s all trifle? It’s over; we’ll crush your heads. Who are your sponsors?” Then they swore at us.

Artur Minasyan says, “The police officers took those actions in an attempt to humiliate us and to break our will, but they won’t succeed; this is a shame on them.”

“This is violence on the part of the police, a crime offense punished by a sentence of 7-12 years”, says Daniel Ionnisyan, representative of ‘Informed Citizens Association’ NGO.

Ionnisyan assures that human rights defenders examine this issue and will bring it to the end. According to the representative of the NGO, only in Yerevan, the number of the persons apprehended in these 2 days is about 200.

Levon Zakaryan, who attended the march in Liberty Square yesterday, was also beaten by the police officers in the area adjacent to the Square.

Levon told Medialab that he was not apprehended; the police officers shoved and then beat him and Artush Chibukhchyan on the area between the Opera House and North Avenue.

“They attacked on us and started shoving and hitting us; I wanted to pull Artush out, but they started hitting; my blood pressure went up and I was taken to hospital. Then we went home. Artush had sustained a contusion and grave injuries.”

Levon said that today he had received a call from the police and was summoned to the police division; he refused to go telling them to send him a proper notification.

“But I won’t bring any complaint. It’s useless in this totalitarian country; the proceedings will be discontinued in the end”, he said to Medialab.

Human rights defender, Artur Sakunts, Chairman of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor, expressed the opinion below on such unprecedented violence and humiliation, ”There is a political order, there is a political decision to spare no efforts to humiliate and degrade figures well-known by the public, mostly targeting the members of the Founding Parliament so that they are perceived by the public as humiliated.

“We also witnessed widespread violence on March 1, 2008. Then, the police also beat the activists and the intensity of the violence was no less, but there were no such alerts and evidence on humiliation. Now we see that, for instance, they pressed Vargdes Gaspari’s mouth by feet and didn’t let him speak or forced the guys to kiss their shoes. This is a trend to humiliate a person in his/her own eyes through ill-treatment which is caused only by a clear political order”, Sakunts says.

According to Sakunts, this widespread violence and degrading treatment on the part of police is caused by another motive as well. The human rights defender considers such a motive to be revenge for the perished colonel of police.

“This is revenge on the citizens whose approach to the incident is completely different from the expected one. The system does not control the disgusting conduct of some of its staff members that is inappropriate for police officers”, he says.

The human rights defender says that the state of affairs would be different if Serzh Sargsyan, the Chief of Police, the Head of the National Security Service and the Prosecutor General made public speeches to mitigate the situation and urge the law enforcement agencies to carry on their actions only in legal way.

“But since there are no such public calls, this means that they encourage, i.e. by their silence the political authorities encourage such practices of the police. These actions made the assurances on the police reforms vanish into the air”, he says.

medialab.am