Riot police arrested five of them late on Tuesday while clashing with protesters who blocked a road junction close to Armenia’s main border crossing with Georgia. They remained in custody as of Wednesday evening.
The detainees included Suren Petrosian, a Yerevan-based political activist and analyst who has emerged as one of the leaders of the protests mainly involving residents of four Tavush villages that would be seriously affected by the planned handover. News reports said that he could be charged with “hooliganism.”
Armenia’s Investigative Committee did not clarify whether Petrosian and the four other men will be indicted or released without charge.
Another active participant of the protests, retired army Colonel Mihran Makhsudian, was hospitalized shortly after the dispersal of Tuesday’s protest. According to his wife Rita Grigorian, he suffered a serious injury to his head while being taken to a local police station.
Armenia - Protesting residents of Tavush province sit around a bonfire, April 23, 2024.
Makhsudian is a resident of Voskepar, one of the border villages in question. He bitterly argued with Interior Minister Vahe Ghazarian on Monday at a section of a national highway passing through Tavush.
Azerbaijan is due to gain control over the road section adjacent to the village of Kirants and three nearby areas under the terms of a controversial border delimitation deal announced by Baku and Yerevan last Friday. Hundreds of protesters continued to block the section for the fifth consecutive day on Wednesday. Security forces have so far made no attempts to disperse them.
“We drew the border in the 1990s,” one of the protesters told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “Our older generation did that. People, young men died for that.”
Also risking prosecution were seven other men affiliated with Combat Brotherhood, a Yerevan-based group also strongly opposed to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s fresh territorial concession to Baku. They were arrested on Monday after clashing with the driver of a military vehicle that tried to drive through another road blocked by protesters. Videos posted on social media showed the driver jumping onto the crowd from the roof of the SUV belonging to the Yerkrapah militia led by Sasun Mikaelian, a political ally of Pashinian.
Armenia - A view of a road in Tavush region, April 22, 2024.
Mikaelian accused the protesters of attacking the Yerkrapah member and damaging his car. Investigators have backed this version of events disputed by Combat Brotherhood. A member of the group, Ruben Dallakian, insisted that his detained comrades tried to stop the Yerkrapah vehicle from running over them and other protesters.
The same vehicle reportedly rammed into another protesting crowd on Tuesday, sparking more allegations that Yerkrapah is executing government orders to intimidate the protesters. Mikaelian denied that.
Armenia’s human rights ombudswoman, Anahit Manasian, expressed concern over those incidents. Speaking to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service she said her office has demanded that law-enforcement authorities “adequately” investigate them.
Manasian also said that office representatives have visited Petrosian and other arrested activists in jail. She did not comment on opposition claims that they are subjected to “political persecution.”