Opposition Women’s Group Stages Rally

Authorized by the municipality, Saturdays political rally by the Women for Peace NGO under the guise of dealing with Armenian-Russian relations and resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict was anything but. Instead, some wondered if the former president, Levon Ter-Petrossian, would make an appearance at what was in essence the first legally sanctioned opposition rally since the state of emergency was declared. As it happened, however, only Ter-Petrossian’s wife attended.

Unzipped quotes figures from ArmInfo and Lragir putting the number of those in attendance at 7-10,000. However, E-Channel and The Caucasian Knot put it at more like 2-3,000. Regardless, the meeting was important given demands from the international community that citizens be allowed to hold rallies and meetings. In that sense, and not least because the pro-government media also reported on the event more impartially than usual, the demonstration gave Unzipped some cause for hope.

Writing about the first authorised rally after the state of emergency, I speculated that this could possibly be considered “a first - albeit small but indicative - sign of upcoming changes”. I think the rally was pretty successful in what it aimed to achieve. […]

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Interestingly, according to reports from Yerevan, Public TV’s main information programme Haylur - for the first time in ages - showed proper footage from the rally (not their usual “handful of people” before and after the rally), without biased reporting.

I am not ready yet to say that this is perhaps another sign of upcoming changes, but interesting nevertheless.

According to ArmInfo, the rally which was authorized to run from 3-5pm ended when police turned off electricity powering the loudspeakers for the event. According to the opposition, this was because they had been deprived of electricity for the first 30 minutes. However, as the time stamp om my photos show, this was not the case. Instead, technical problems interrupted proceedings for about 10-20 minutes maximum until the opposition organizers managed to resolve the matter.

Chairman of Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s election headquarters, his former press-secretary Levon Zurabyan said that when the rally started electric power was switched off for 30 minutes, and now they have to continue the rally for 30 minutes. But the talks between organizers of the rally and policemen had no result. After that supporters of the opposition were shouting anti-governmental slogans for several minutes and then left as the rally organizers called them to do it. As the equipment was disconnected from energy supply, the leaders of two large oppositional parties had no chance to make a speech, - Stepan Demirchyan, the chairman of the People’s Party of Armenia, and Aram Sargsyan, the head of the Political Council of the “Republic” party.

Anyway, in addition to the presence of recently released Suren Sureniants, Unzipped says that one of the most touching speeches came from the wife of Levon Ter-Petrossian’s campaign manager and former foreign minister, Alexander Arzumanian, who still remains in detention. E-Channel also reports on Melissa Brown’s address.

“A political prisoner’s wife wakes up in the morning, prepares food for the kids, sends them to school, makes posters and goes to work. At the workplace, she may conduct a little gathering, and then leaves to take part in a political action and gets back. If it a visiting day, she goes to see her husband in prison, waiting there for 7 hours in order to talk with her husband for 1 hour. After the prison, she goes to participate in a political action, and then to the Northern Avenue. That’s what our life is about,” Melissa Brown tells.

“All of us will stand here, at the Northern Avenue, at the Freedom Square, until our husbands, brothers, fathers, sons, friends get released, until our country gets released,” Brown concluded her speech.

Interestingly, until the demonstrators marched on Northern Avenue, there were no police at the gathering itself until after the rally overran its authorized time. However, there were police in waiting off Republic Square at near the Opera just in case. Certainly, for now at least, international pressure and attention appears to have changed the way the authorities deal with demonstrations. Only time will tell if that remains the case, but here’s hoping.

Photos: Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008