YEREVAN. – As Armenia’s ex-Deputy Police Chief, serving Emergency Situations Minister, and the coalition government’s junior partner, Orinats Yerkir (Rule of Law) Party’s capital city Yerevan mayoral candidate Armen Yeritsyan assessed Tuesday’s police actions in downtown Yerevan as lawful, Aravot daily reports.

“To our query [as to whether] beating [opposition Heritage Party-led “Barev [Hello], Yerevan” bloc’s mayoral candidate] Armen Martirosyan likewise was lawful, Mr. Yeritsyan said [as follows]:

‘The police were lawful, but making an assessment without knowing the entire work, in my view, is inappropriate for a lawyer. We need to study and know what happened there. We all have to obey the police.’    

Mr. Yeritsayan is not of the view that, on [Tuesday,] April 9, the [March 1,] 2008 [Yerevan] atrocity and the ‘old tradition’ awakened among the police.

‘No. We must protect our police. We have to ensure that our police are able to protect us. We all criticize because the police are a penalizing organ; that is why many do not like [them],’ [he said].   

Mr. Yeritsyan [also] stressed that he is not familiar with the details of the events on April 9, and [therefore] he cannot make assessments,” Aravot writes.