Pashinyan praises riot police for professional countering protesters' attempt to break into parliament

p

YEREVAN, 13 June. /ARKA/. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan today praised police officers for what he called a professional and lawful counteraction to an attempt by anti-government protesters to break into the parliament building late in the afternoon of 12 June./pp ‘In all such cases, the police will act in the same way, Pashinyan said./pp

Police used stun grenades outside the Armenian parliament on Wednesday during clashes with protesters led by Archbishop Galstanyan, demanding the resignation of Nikol Pashinyan./pp ‘The protesters tried to forcefully break through a police cordon to attack the country's highest legislative body. The police protected the legislative institution, the statehood. Incidentally, someone with the title of archbishop asked the police to remove the shields as they were not threatened, and a short time later the same person organised a stone throwing in their direction. This is what you need to know about the moral portrait of the two highest representatives of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Pashinyan said in parliament. He noted that 18 police officers and 83 citizens were injured./pp

All the injuries were of light and medium severity. At the moment 16 people have been hospitalised, the condition of all is assessed as satisfactory. Yesterday they showed me a photo and tried to convince me that one citizen had his arm torn off, although it is obvious that this was not the case - the citizen underwent surgery and had three fingers removed, he said. -0-/p