Berdzor Incident: Karabakh police stop “hardliners” from Armenia

News | 01.02.15 | 12:25
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Police in Nagorno-Karabakh said on Saturday they had stopped a group
of opposition hardliners from Armenia from entering the territory of
their republic “in order to prevent mass disturbances.”

Some four dozen vehicles of members of the Founding Parliament, a
radical opposition group seeking a regime change in Armenia, intended
to cross into the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) on January 31 to
hold a political action there. The hardliners, among whom were also
Jirayr Sefilian and other veterans of the Karabakh war, claimed to
have been beaten up by Karabakh police and young men wearing special
police task force uniforms on the Goris-Stepanakert highway near
Berdzor and prevented from entering the republic.

The Founding Parliament, a successor of the Pre-Parliament pressure
group, said more than a dozen participants of the automobile march
were injured in what it described as an unprovoked attack by the
Police.

It said the Police damaged many vehicles and also confiscated
video-recording devices. At least one person, a journalist, was
reportedly hospitalized with injuries in Goris.

The NKR Police, meanwhile, issued a statement, saying that the
Founding Parliament’s automobile march had elicited a “negative
reaction among wide circles of the Karabakh public” and “a large part
of the population decided to prevent the march participants’ entry
into Karabakh.”

“Considering the aforementioned circumstance and possible violations
of public order, the Police set up patrols at some sections of the
Goris-Stepanakert highway. Meeting the march participants, police
workers conducted explanatory work, urging them to give up their
initiative, as it has caused public tensions in Artsakh.

Nevertheless, a group of participants of the automobile march, despite
police calls, resorted to illegal actions and continued provocations
even after police warnings,” the NKR Police said.

“For the purpose of preventing mass disturbances, under the
circumstances the Police of Nagorno-Karabakh had to resort to
corresponding actions within the framework of the powers reserved to
them by law.

Unfortunately, there are people who got injured, but their lives are
out of danger,” the Police report concluded.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress