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Hrachya Boyajyan’s defense counsel Arayik Zalyan, lawyer at HCA Vanadzor, has repeatedly voiced the non-correct and baseless assessment given to the actions of Hrachya Boyajyan detained on the charges of using violence against the RA Police officers on July 19, 2016 in the area adjacent to M. Khorenatsi Street in Yerevan city under Article 316(2) of the RA Criminal Code, i.e. throwing at them stones and other items.

The defense counsel filed relevant motions supporting the fact that protester Hrachya Boyajyan’s and other protesters’ actions did not relate to the performance by police officers of their official duties and moreover it were the police officers who provoked the citizens by their conduct using the arms assigned to them to create an atmosphere of fear and swearing them.

Note that Article 316(2) of the RA Criminal Code requires availability of actions related to performance by the representatives of the authority of their official duties. This implies that the Article is not applicable in this case, especially given that the demonstrators’ protest was only against the termination of gas, water and electricity supply and operation of the public transport in the neighborhood of the RA Police Guard and Patrol Service Regiment after its seizure by ‘Sasna Tsrer’ group and throughout the investigation into the case no evidence was provided on any damage to the life or health of any person due to their actions.

As for the concept of ‘charges’ in the sense of the RA Criminal Procedure Code, the Code considers charges to be the proven reasoning that an action banned under the Criminal Code was committed by a certain person, but in this case the charges attributed to Hrachya Boyajyan do not present performance or non-performance of any particular action at all.

The motion on discontinuing the criminal proceedings or re-qualifying the action under Article 316(2) of the RA Criminal Code filed with the RA Prosecutor General’s Office on April 4, 2017 was also rejected.

According to the representative of the Prosecutor’s Office, the “approach in the motion obviously does not meet the requirement to guarantee the rights of the victims of crime.” Also, the representative did not consider well-grounded the absence of any links of the protesters’ actions with the official duties of the police officers and saw no reasons to change the charges or discontinue the proceedings under the case.

Note that Hrachya Boyajyan does not admit the charges brought against him and went on a hunger strike demanding to stop illegal prosecution against him; 2 weeks later, on April 21, 2017, he terminated the hunger strike due to health problems.