While speaking with reporters on Saturday, Armenian Minister of Justice Hovhannes Manukyan did not make any comments on the court ruling that was handed down in the case into the events that occurred in capital city Yerevan on November 5, 2013. 

“For the moment, I will refrain from giving any evaluation because this judicial act is not [yet] in legal force. In all likelihood, this court decision will be appealed at the Court of Cassation,” Manukyan told reporters.  

Yerevan’s Kentron and Nork-Marash General Jurisdiction Court on Friday found guilty—and primarily on charges of hooliganism—the thirteen defendants in the aforementioned case, and handed down prison sentences ranging between one and seven years. Activist Shant Harutyunyan, who had organized the demonstration on November 5, was sentenced to six years in prison. 

The United National Initiative leader and activist Shant Harutyunyan who had announced about starting a revolution, on November 5, 2013—and with close to one hundred supporters wearing Guy Fawkes “Anonymous masks”—had started a march toward the Presidential Palace, but the police had stopped the march.

As a result, there was a scuffle and explosions, and the police detained 38 activists. As a result of the melee, sixteen people, including eight police officers, were injured. Subsequently, criminal charges were laid against fourteen people, including Harutyunyan and his 15-year-old son.