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Armenian Opposition Says Amendments To Legalize Use Of Arms Against

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  • Armenian Opposition Says Amendments To Legalize Use Of Arms Against

    ARMENIAN OPPOSITION SAYS AMENDMENTS TO LEGALIZE USE OF ARMS AGAINST CIVILIANS

    Aravot
    March 19 2009
    Armenia

    The Heritage parliamentary opposition faction in Armenia is planning
    to vote against amendments to three laws related to the police, which,
    the faction leader believes, would legalize the use of arms against
    civilians, Aravot daily has reported. The faction leader added that the
    amendments will legalize skinheads, too, the paper said. The following
    is the text of Margarit Yesayan's report headlined "Skinheads are being
    moved from 'de facto' to 'de jure'", published by the pro-opposition
    Aravot daily on 19 March 2009; subheadings inserted editorially:

    Yesterday [18 March] parliament discussed a portfolio of draft laws
    on making changes and amendments to the laws on "On police troops",
    "On the police" and "On police service". According to the government's
    decision, these changes are pressing.

    Draft law bans police intervention against "peaceful, unarmed" rallies

    When presenting the draft law, a deputy chief of Armenia's Police,
    Hovhannes Hunanyan, took questions from MPs. [Independent MP] Viktor
    Dallakyan asked whether police troops could use physical force and
    violence against peaceful protesters. The deputy chief of the Police
    replied: "Point 3 in Article 14 of this law envisages that intervention
    by police is prohibited for the purpose of stopping peaceful, unarmed
    meetings, rallies, marches and demonstrations that are held with a
    violation of legal order." "Why did they [police] intervene on 1 March
    [during post-election disturbances in 2008]?" one of the journalists
    asked, but his question remained unanswered.

    Dallakyan said that the proposed changes forbid use of firearms in
    "the event of a considerable gathering of people": "For one person
    a considerable gathering can be 100,000 people, for another - 10
    people. My approach is the following: we need to remove the word
    'considerable', and because more than one person is already a
    'gathering' and one cannot open fire in their presence."

    The chairman of the temporary [parliamentary] commission to look into
    the 1 March events, Samvel Nikoyan, said that the draft laws discussed
    were directly connected with the 1 March events. He repeated the
    statement by the deputy chief of the Police that the dismissal of
    a few top police officials was connected with the 1 March events:
    "Police actions were often an attempt to react to developments in
    some way rather than precise actions aimed at predicting the events
    and resisting them." Mr Nikoyan requested that the draft law clearly
    prohibit use of expired weapons - implying the story of Cheremukha-7
    gas grenades [which, according to official reports, killed three
    out of the 10 victims in the 1-2 March 2008 clashes between security
    forces and protesters]. He also suggested defining clearly in what
    kind of a case a special weapon can be used and in what kind it cannot.

    Opposition faction says draft law to legalize use of arms against
    civilians

    The [opposition] Heritage faction announced that it would vote
    against the portfolio. The leader of the faction, Armen Martirosyan,
    who described the draft law as important, said that after having
    familiarized himself with it, he came to the conclusion that general
    elections should be held in our country periodically and they should
    be rigged periodically, afterwards, the people will periodically
    voice their discontent, then mass disturbances should take place,
    and internal troops should immediately intervene. Martirosyan said:
    "According to the logic of this law, internal troops have been
    replenished by youth of conscript age, and from now on they will be
    replaced with contract servicemen. That is, skinheads, who defended
    the authorities on funding from oligarchic structures, will become
    legal now, will receive salary from the state and will protect the
    authorities from mass disturbances within this framework." The MP
    believes that this is the whole logic of the draft laws. The MP made
    this statement because the draft law envisages that service in police
    troops will be carried out exclusively on contract basis starting from
    2012. Martirosyan also said that the draft law tries to legalize the
    use of arms and military equipment against civilian population. He
    said: "This should happen exclusively under conditions of martial
    law, and even then [only] in the battlefield. And if there is such a
    wave of popular disturbances, then there is demand for it, and this
    requires a political solution but not use of military equipment."
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