Police officers detained a group of activists and lawyers who were rallying outside the Arabkir Police Department to support lawyer Ruben Melikyan and several others apprehended earlier on Friday for refusing to stop a protest action outside the parliament.
Among the detained citizens were Artur Danielyan, the leader of Adekvad party highly critical of the Armenian government, lawyer Arsen Babayan and dozens of other citizens, with some of them taken to other police departments.
Before being detained Danielyan insisted police did not move to disperse the rally as they were unable to clarify PM Nikol Pashinyan’s position on the matter, since the latter was addressing the parliament over the extension of the state of emergency at the time.
"I can’t get it what problem they are solving by detentions. Ruben Melikyan was standing alone in front of the National Assembly, but he was detained. At the moment, about 60 people are gathered here, but they are not being detained. We can’t follow the logic here,” he said, suggesting police officers took no action as they had not received an order from the premier yet.