Tigran Arakelian, 28, and other young activists were confronted by a group of plainclothes police officers in the city center on Wednesday while publicizing a rally held by the Armenian National Congress (HAK) the next day. Arakelian and two teenage HAK supporters were injured in the incident and required hospitalization. They say they were punched, kicked and even pistol-whipped for informing Yerevan residents about the rally.
The Armenian police has come up with a different version of events, saying that law-enforcement officers themselves came under attack when they tried to stop a brawl involving 60 youths. Three of them sustained injuries as a result, according to the police.
Arakelian was taken into custody after being summoned to the police headquarters of Yerevan’s Kentron district and brought face to face with one of those policemen. Givi Hovannisian, Arakelian’s lawyer present at the cross-examination, told RFE/RL on Monday that the officer, Erik Poghosian, claimed to have been beaten by his client. Hovannisian described the claim as “obviously false.”
Poghosian is one of several low-ranking police officers who have testified against many of the opposition members arrested following last year’s post-election unrest in Yerevan. Armenian courts convicted virtually all of those oppositionists of resisting and assaulting “representatives of the state authority” solely on the basis of police testimony, a practice condemned by the Council of Europe and other human rights organizations.
According to Hovannisian, the police are now considering formally charging Arakelian under an article of the Armenian Criminal Code that deals with hooligan acts involving assaults on police officers carried out with “exceptional cynicism.” The clause carries up to five years’ imprisonment.
Hovannisian said the police could also bring the same charge against the two other young HAK supporters who were taken to hospital after the incident. He said they have not been arrested yet because of their young age. One of the teenagers is only 14 years old.
The HAK, meanwhile, condemned Arakelian’s arrest and again insisted that the violent incident was orchestrated by the police. Levon Zurabian, a senior HAK representative, singled out Ashot Karapetian, the Kentron police chief, for blame.
“On July 1, Karapetian personally went to the hospital and threatened, in my presence, to ‘make you pay dearly for this’ and throw the boys into prison,” Zurabian told RFE/RL. “He personally organized, provoked and carried out that crime.”
Karapetian dismissed the allegation and accused the opposition of “prodding” young men to attack police. He also insisted that the police have video evidence to back up their claims.
“A policeman can not injure himself,” Karapetian told RFE/RL. “I condemn and will strictly punish any assault on any policeman.”
“In any developed country people behave themselves as soon as they see a policeman. Here the opposite is the case,” he said.
Similar incidents were also reported ahead of other rallies held by the HAK in recent months. The opposition alliance blamed the Armenian government and police for the violence. The police claimed the opposite.