The co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Armenia by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Axel Fischer (Germany, EPP/CD) and Sir Alan Meale (United Kingdom, SOC), have appealed to police as well as protesters to show maximum restraint in order to ensure that peaceful protests can take place unhindered, without them degrading into violence as happened on the evening of Monday 22 June.

The right to demonstrate peacefully must prevail, they stressed. They welcomed the release of those detained on 22 June and the reported agreement between the leadership of the “No Plunder Initiative” and the national police that has led to a de-escalation of the tensions in Yerevan.

At the same time, the co-rapporteurs expressed their concern at allegations of the excessive use of force and the purposeful targeting of journalists by the police when breaking up the protests on 22 June. These allegations should be impartially and transparently investigated, they said. 

The co-rapporteurs are due to present an information note on their last visit to Armenia at a meeting of PACE’s Monitoring Committee on 3 September 2015 in Sarajevo.