Several dozen young supporters of the opposition Armenian National Congress (HAK) marched to the Office of the Prosecutor-General in Yerevan on Friday to demand the release of a fellow activist who was arrested after distributing opposition leaflets last month.
Police in Armenia’s northwestern province of Shirak have detained a group of young men, among them the son of the controversial mayor of Gyumri, after a local villager was fired at on Thursday evening.
Four more opposition members, including former Deputy Prosecutor-General Gagik Jahangirian, were released from prison on Tuesday in accordance with a general amnesty declared by the Armenian authorities.
Traveling to Yerevan from other parts of Armenia by public transport was all but impossible ahead of a fresh opposition rally held in the capital on Monday evening.
Hundreds of local government officials and other people were bused to Yerevan from Armenia’s second and third largest cities on Sunday in what the ruling Republican Party (HHK) called a show of support for its victory in the municipal elections in the capital.
In what has become a pattern, the Armenian authorities again seriously restricted transport communication between Yerevan and the rest of the country ahead of an opposition rally in the capital on Friday.
