ARMENIAN TENT CAMP PROTESTERS DEFY POLICE

Agence France Presse
October 3, 2011 Monday 4:26 PM GMT

Opposition supporters in Armenia took their round-the-clock protest
for snap elections into a fourth day on Monday, defying police warnings
that their tent camp sit-in is illegal.

Some 3,000 people joined an evening rally in Yerevan’s Freedom Square
where the number of tents has grown to more than 30 since the week-long
protest was launched on Friday.

Police have been using loudhailers to issue repeated warnings to
protesters that the camp is illegal, but have not made any attempt
to remove the tents.

A police operation to clear a larger tent camp in the same square
after disputed elections in 2008 helped to spark clashes that left
10 people dead.

Complaining of alleged institutional corruption and democratic failings
in the ex-Soviet state, the Armenian National Congress opposition
bloc is demanding presidential and parliamentary polls before the
end of the year.

“To eradicate corruption it is necessary to have good personnel, an
independent parliament and court system,” the opposition bloc leader
and former Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrosian told the rally.

But the authorities have rejected any possibility of early elections
and say the round-the-clock protest is simply a political tactic to
attract support before parliamentary polls due to be held next year.

Armenia has been through political and military turmoil since
independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, with a series of disputed
elections and a war with neighbouring Azerbaijan over the region of
Nagorny Karabakh.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress