Civic Groups Condemn ‘Illegal’ Police Crackdown On Protests

· June 18, 2024

Nearly two dozen civic organizations on Monday joined the Armenian opposition in condemning riot police for using force last week against protesters demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation.

They were especially outraged by a large number of stun grenades thrown at a crowd that gathered at a street intersection outside the Armenian parliament building on June 12 as part of Archbishop Bagrat Galstanian’s bid to oust Pashinian.

“The [government] argument that special means were used because protesters were attempting to break through the police cordon and attack the National Assembly building is unfounded,” they said in a joint statement. “The protesters were in an area adjacent the Lovers’ Park and posed no direct and real threat to the National Assembly building. Also, the police have failed to present any evidence of the inevitability of such an attack.”

The use of the stun grenades, which left at least 83 protesters and journalists injured, was therefore “unnecessary, disproportionate and illegal,” they charged.

“The violent and illegal actions of the police are encouraged and directly instructed at the highest level of political power, including by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and National Assembly President Alen Simonian,” added the statement signed by 17 mostly Western-funded NGOs as well as eight individual civic activists.

Its signatories demanded that law-enforcement authorities investigate police officers involved in the crackdown. With Pashinian and his political allies strongly defending the use of force, the authorities have indicated no plans to prosecute any of them.

The NGO statement noted in this regard that “no police officer has previously been held accountable or punished for any violence committed against participants of gatherings or journalists covering those gatherings.” The June 12 crackdown is a consequence of this “systemic impunity,” it said.