POLICE RAID OPPOSITION ACTIVISTS IN YEREVAN CENTER

UNCLAS YEREVAN 000668 SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPT FOR DRL AND EUR/CARC E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PHUM PGOV PREL AM SUBJECT: POLICE RAID OPPOSITION ACTIVISTS IN YEREVAN CENTER REF: ¶1. (SBU) Around 1100 on August 25, about 50 policemen raided the space that opposition activists have occupied for months on Yerevan's central Northern Avenue, tearing down and confiscating their posters and all other paper materials. Promptly arriving at the scene, Poloffs witnessed about 40 protesters and 10 policemen quarrelling about a new poster calling for new presidential elections that the demonstrators were attempting to reinstall. Angry women and men from the crowd were screaming at the policemen, calling them traitors to the nation. As the situation calmed, the bulk of the police left the scene, leaving four officers behind with instructions to tear down any new posters. ¶2. (SBU) Levon Zurabian from the Armenian National Congress (the new opposition movement led by Levon Ter-Petrossian (LTP)) speculated that perhaps the police were infuriated with a new poster the opposition had recently put up calling for the collection of signatures to send former president Kocharian to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. According to Zurabian, the police kicked and shoved a few people who were trying to hinder them, though they did not make any arrests. Mikael Danielyan from the Helsinki Association, who was also there, had heard the police saying that the residents of Northern Avenue and other passersby had complained that the posters and the strikers obstructed movement along the pedestrian mall. Other NGO activists, a few reporters and two Heritage MPs were also at the scene. ¶3. (SBU) The pro-LTP mini-encampment had accumulated to a notable presence in recent weeks, and had long been untroubled by police. A double-sided poster display had run for some 50 meters, with faces and stories of jailed LTP supporters, while ANC leaders claimed to have garnered 100,000 signatures on a petition drive calling for Kocharian to be indicted by the International Criminal Court. Our periodic observations over recent weeks -- and as recently as the evening of August 24 -- revealed that the protest spot gathers 200-300 vocal supporters each evening. Lately, ANC organizers had begun addressing the crowd with a megaphone in the evening hours. Levon Ter-Petrossian himself had appeared at the Northern Avenue protest site during the evening of August 23, commemorating an anniversary of Armenia's independence movement, accompanied by Aram Manukian, who was famous for his role in the independence movement. Zurabian tells us Manukian has been in hiding from authorities since the March 1-2 events. ¶4. (SBU) COMMENT: It is not clear exactly why police chose the current moment to act against the Northern Avenue protesters, after several months of leaving them unmolested. Perhaps Zurabian's hypothesis is correct, and the provocative new poster crossed a line for authorities. Alternatively, authorities may have felt that this protest was starting to gather too much traction, and that it was time to take it down a judicious notch, while at the same time showing enough restraint to avoid either sparking a new outbreak of opposition outrage or bringing down a new wave of human rights criticism. PENNINGTON