ORO alliance: Our thoughts will be with Artur tomorrow
“The sacrifice of the ‘bringer of bread’ should make us unite and fight jointly against regime change,” the Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian (ORO) alliance said on Thursday evening. As a tribute to the bright memory of Artur Sargsyan, the ORO alliance will cancel its campaign rallies on Friday, March 17. "Our thoughts will be with Artur tomorrow. We believe that Artur Sargsyan’s self-sacrifice cannot remain without consequences and should not drive us to despair; rather, we should unite and struggle together. We are obliged to take concrete steps to unite our people and carry and carry out regime change,” said the alliance. Artur Sargsyan, nicknamed the “bringer of bread” for taking food to members of the Sasna Dzrer group who seized a Yerevan police building last July and remained barricaded there for nearly two weeks, died on March 16 while being treated at the Armenia Medical Center. He died ten days after being released from prison following a 25-day hunger strike. Sargsyan, 49, underwent urgent bowel surgery at the hospital the previous night. Artur Sargsyan was first arrested last August for aiding the gunmen and released in December because of his deteriorating health condition. He was again arrested in February 2017 allegedly for not showing up in the hearing of last year’s standoff. Sargsyan began a hunger strike in protest against his detention. He was released from pre-trial detention earlier in March after six MPs from several political parties paid a bail for him in the amount of 3million drams.
