Armenia: Police beat opposition protesters in Yerevan · Global Voices
Artur Papyan

Bloggers were faster then most media covering the violent events of yesterday. Unzipped, Narjan (am), Aramazd (am) here (am), here (am) and here (am), HyeBlog (ru), E-channel blog (am), A1plus blog (am) were among the first to react, mostly bringing information as it came, while the posts made already today have more accuracy and analysis.
Unzipped has video and information: “A1+ just reported that police and security forces brutally oppressed peaceful demonstration of opposition movement using force, beating demonstrators and using tear-gas towards journalists and demonstrators.”
Aramazd (am), a blogger as well as one of the opposition leaders from the Impeachment block was perhaps the first to report the news:”Today, after the rally organized by the IMPEACHMENT bloc, REPUBLIC and NEW TIMES parties, the special police forces beat participants of the rally and march to KGB, where the hero of Shushi, Zhirair Sefilyan, was jailed.”
Pigh(ru) has a completely different perspective of the event:
“I never judge anybody, I don't have the right to it, and I respect the points of views of people, if they are genuinely honest, and I don't want the blood of people, who're just pushed forward by the provokers, no matter what side they come from: “Impeachment” or government. The whole business stinks, but someone needs this stink… And yesterday it once again became obvious for me, that wherever you have HHSh(former ruling party) – it will always stink…
Guys, take care of yourselves, neither Serge (Armenian PM), nor Robert (Armenian president), nor Nikol (leader of Impeachment opposition block) are worth even the smallest scratch on your bodies…”
There's a lot of controversy Kornelij Glas(ru) says, and its hard to understand who really provoked whom, however, looking at the overall context of the elections Kornelij Glas (ru) is amazed just how stupid the authorities are behaving by arresting Alexandr Arzumanyan and beating people at the rally like that. “This is just a pointless annoyment of the people”, without having any reasons to behave like that, as the main contenders for the parliament are the two big pro-government parties anyway. And now, as a result of such actions the atmosphere will overheat and people will get over their apathy, which can lead into far reaching consequences, the blogger concludes.
Anarchists from the ALS Movement are also looking at the global picture:
It all has a simple historically-materialist explanation: when a businessmen makes an investment, he must also take care of protecting his business interests. [] What we saw yesterday is nothing less then the Armenian rulling elite trying to protect its business interests. I expected police brutality after the elections, but hardly 3 days before. At stake is not Impeachment’s ideology, but a much more basic right to be able to hold peaceful rallies and to voice protests in contemporary capitalist Բարգավաճների Հայաստան Armenia belonging to the prosperous. Last night the Armenian state has demonstrated its paranoia, and where its fears are. It fears when people take to the streets in numbers. A paradoxical irony: Armenian state fears its own people.
Photo from A1plus, used with permission.