New Crowd Control Rules Approved For Armenian Police
Armenia — Riot police guard Yerevan’s Liberty Square moments before
allowing the opposition Armenian National Congress to hold a
demonstration there, 17Mar2011
Ruzanna Stepanian
17.02.2012
Security forces should avoid using force against peaceful protesters
and resort to firearms only in case of extremely violent riots,
according to new rules for crowd control adopted by Armenian police.
The detailed `guidelines’ for riot police were elaborated with expert
assistance from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe and approved by Vladimir Gasparian, chief of the national
police, late last year.
The guidelines specify the types of `special means’ which the police
can use to deal with `armed resistance’ and demonstrations that turn
violent and `endanger public safety.’ Those include batons,
electric-shock guns, stun grenades and rubber bullets.
There is no reference to Russian-made tear gas capsules that were
mishandled by police officers during the March 2008 post-election
clashes [read: state-sponsored slaughter and military coup] in Yerevan
which left eight opposition protesters and two police personnel dead.
Four of the civilian victims are believed to haven killed by such
capsules. The others were shot dead by live rounds fired by security
forces.
The March 2008 events [read: slaughter and coup] were the worst street
violence in Armenia’s history that still reverberates on the local
political scene. The Armenian authorities insist that they used deadly
force to end `mass disturbances’ organized by close associates of
opposition presidential candidate Levon Ter-Petrosian with the aim of
forcibly toppling the government. Ter-Petrosian and his Armenian
National Congress (HAK) vehemently deny the official theory, saying
that the authorities deliberately killed people to enforce the results
of a fraudulent presidential election.
The new police guidelines stipulate that police officers can use
firearms only if the conventional riot gear and other `special means’
fail to contain a violent crowd. But they are not allowed to open fire
when there are `substantial concentrations of people’ carrying a high
risk of injuring innocent civilians. They should not use force at all
if a demonstration proceeds peacefully, according to the document.
`The purpose of such changes is to minimize all those cases where a
police officer could act in an inadequate way,’ Artur Osikian, a
deputy chief of the police, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service
(Azatutyun.am). But he would not say if they are specifically aimed at
preventing a repeat of the 2008 bloodshed.
Nikol Pashinian, a senior HAK figure who spent about two years in
prison for his role in that unrest [read: slaughter and coup],
dismissed the guidelines, saying that their absence in 2008 was not
the main reason for the loss of life. `These guidelines say nothing
about what should be done if the authorities themselves organize mass
riots to use force against a peaceful demonstration,’ he said.
Pashinian argued that the authorities should simply stop rigging
elections if they really want to avert such violence in the future.
`Mass disturbances simply won’t happen if legitimate elections are
held in the country,’ he told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
http://www.armenialiberty.org/content/article/24487962.html