Human rights activist: ”Police actions in Sari Tagh district were not lawful”
17:15, August 3, 2016 | News, Other news
According to Artur Sakunts, it is the police actions that were dangerous for the life of citizens.
“Following the events unfolded over the seizure of the Patrol and Guard Service Regiment premises, 22 people are still at hospitals and 51 injured people have already been discharged,” Anahit Haytayan, press spokesperson for the Minister of Heath stated noting that today 3 patients were discharged from Surb Grigor Lusavorich Medical Center.
According to chief traumatologist Vachagan Ayvazyan, most of the persons hospitalized after the incidents in Sari Tagh district were discharged; they mostly sustained slight missile injuries probably caused by stun grenade: “Only one person got a burn. There are splinters of the stun grenades thrown and pieces of asphalt.”
To what extent were the police actions of July 29 in Sari Tagh district, as a result of which the hospitals were filled with injured persons and a minor lost his eye, lawful? Police spokesperson Ashot Aharonyan says: “The investigation will reveal.”
Artur Sakunts is skeptical: if any investigation were really carried out, the police, including Deputy Chief of Police Levon Yeranosyan, who rudely dispersed the ‘Electric Yerevan’ protests last year, should have already been dismissed and held liable.
“If any investigation was carried out, Lyova Yeranosyan, Commander of the Internal Troops, should have been dismissed from his office for over a year and should have been brought to criminal responsibility. That is to say, those statements on investigation are absolutely insignificant, they are rather like beating the air”, Artur Sakunts said in his interview to ‘Azatutyun’ (‘Liberty’).
According to the human rights activist, the police actions in Sari Tagh district may not be considered lawful. Special means were applied after a group of people started throwing stones, but instead of isolating the group members, the police took tough actions against the peaceful protesters.
“They used those special means against local residents; based on the testimonies of individual witnesses and victims, it can be argued that those special means affected children at their own homes. Such practices were absolutely excessive and mostly aimed to intimidate people and exert violence among others on journalists as well. Were there instigators among the journalists as well? I insist that the police actions were actions hazardous to the life of the citizens,” the human rights activist said.
Artur Sakunts reminds that 3 of the 10 persons perished 8 years ago, on March 1, 2008, died from application of ‘Cheryomukha 7’ special means. While a new procedure for application of special means was established after those events, nothing has changed in practice.
“All this comes to witness that the police learnt absolutely no lesson from the events of March 1, 2008. Moreover, it showed once again that any reform or other program vanishes into the air when there is a political order that is of higher priority as compared to, e.g. legal regulations,” argued Artur Sakunts.
According to him, the 4-day April war makes obvious the disproportional development of the army and the police. Armenian authorities focus on police officers rather than on soldiers.