A journalist working for an Armenian civic group was assaulted and seriously injured by unknown men while covering an opposition demonstration in Yerevan on Thursday.
The journalist, Tirayr Muradian, spoke of two attackers who “did not behave like typical participants of rallies” and were “constantly telling other people by phone what they are seeing.”
“When they noticed that I have spotted them they started moving away from me.” Muradian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). He said several minutes later they “unexpectedly popped up by my side, saying why I am filming them and starting to beat me.”
He said he believes the men were plainclothes police officers. Uniformed policemen standing nearby ignored his cries for help, added the reporter.
Muradian, who is a correspondent for the sut.am website of the Union of Informed Citizens, spoke as he lay in a hospital bed in Yerevan’s Grigor Lusavorich Medical Center where he was taken after the incident. A senior doctor there said he suffered injuries to his head and should stay in the hospital for a week.
The Office of the Prosecutor-General said later in the day that it has ordered another law-enforcement agency, the Investigative Committee, to launch an inquiry into the assault condemned by Armenia’s human rights ombudsman, Arman Tatoyan.