Over a Dozen ARF Members Rounded Up By Police
Armenian security forces rounded up more than a dozen members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation “Nikol Aghbalian” Student Association and the ARF Youth Organization of Armenia on Friday, the party’s Supreme Council of Armenia said in a statement.
According to the statement, which deemed the actions “illegal” the young ARF members were taken to various police stations around Yerevan and elsewhere.
Kristine Vardanyan, a lawmaker from the Hayastan opposition bloc, of which the ARF is a member, said that attorneys and members of the bloc were sent to the various detention centers to address the charges.
Armenia’s Interior Ministry issued a statement essentially confirming the arrests, saying, “a group of individuals have been arrested and taken to various regional police precincts as part of a the criminal proceedings.”
The Interior Ministry statement most likely refers to the criminal proceedings initiated for obstruction of justice, which the Investigative Committee began hours ago pertaining to their efforts to detain the Primate of Shirak Diocese Archbishop Mikayel Ajapahyan, whose arrest was prevented earlier Friday, when National Security Service forces raided the Holy See of Etchmiadzin.
In its statement, the ARF Supreme Council of Armenia, characterized the security forces raid on Etchmiadzin as “sacrilegious.”
The Supreme Council of Armenia also that the chair of the ARF Artsakht gomideh, Hayro Zakaryan was also detained by NSS forces.
The ARF Supreme Council, which the highest administrative body of the party in Armenia, also said that one of its members, Gerasim Vardanyan, was summoned to the regional police department in the Ararat Province of Armenia.
