Incident starts outside court building
An incident was reported on Thursday outside the General Jurisdiction Court of Yerevan's Avan and Nor Nork administrative districts where the initiative group of "Vahe Avetyan" social movement was staging a picket. In the meantime, the court was holding the first hearing in the Harsnakar case.
The incident broke out after the police officers banned the picket participants from entering the court building. The policemen demanded that everyone show their IDs. When the participants demanded the police to show the corresponding law that bans their entry without IDs, Lieutenant Colonel Karen Movsisyan said it was one of the internal regulations.
A group of citizens are grouped outside the courtroom waiting for the police to open the entrance doors.
Armen Hovhannisyan, one of the participants of the action, says they call for a fair trial and punishment for those who are guilty of Vahe Avertyan's death.
On June17, Vahe Avetyan, head of ENT (ear-nose-throat) department at the Defense Ministry's Yerevan garrison hospital, and his friends [also army doctors] were subjected to violent beating at Harsnakar restaurant owned by Republican MP Ruben Hayrapetyan. After a 12-day fight for his life, Avetyan died in hospital on June 29 without regaining consciousness. Following the tragedy, civil activists, NGOs and ordinary citizens organized protests demanding to evoke Ruben Hayrapetyan of his parliamentary mandate.
