HHK Vice President calls for accountability in brawl incident involving activist

Armen Ashotyan, Vice President of the Republican Party of Armenia, the former ruling party, condemns the incident that took place between members of the Restart initiative and public activist Narek Malyan.

“The attack on Narek Malyan is one of the flagrant displays of the situation that is created in Armenia. The atmosphere of irresponsibility, impunity that is created in our country has a history of many months,” he said at a news conference today.

Ashotyan called on law enforcement agencies to carry out a complete process as required by law.

“This is a consequence of dividing the society into friendlies and critics, and a circumstance of treating according to this division. I expect and demand the law enforcement system to carry out a complete process as required by law this time. Those guilty are known, this is entirely about bringing those guilty to justice in the legal arena and preventing this kind of manifestations in Armenia in the future,” he said.

An incident took place between members of the Re-Start initiative and public activist Narek Malyan in downtown Yerevan on March 4 after midnight.

Malyan has said on Facebook that he was physically assaulted by members of the group.

Police told ARMENPRESS that on-duty officers in the city saw and interfered in the brawl, prevented it and detained 6 participants of the incident. Another citizen has been summoned for questioning. All detainees have been released as police said they are preparing proceedings.

Davit Simonyan from Re-Start said on Facebook they will release a video detailing the incident.

Shortly after the news broke, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan personally made a statement, apparently referring to the incident.

Any attempt of solving issues with violence in Armenia must receive a strict legal counteraction, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Facebook.

“All those who act with the logic of violence, distribution of lies and fakes in new Armenia, are acting against Armenia, against democracy, against the people,” he added.