YEREVAN. – There were episodes of use of disproportionate force in the videos of the detaining of a number of figures yesterday. Larisa Minasyan, Executive Director of Open Society Foundations-Armenia, said this at a press conference today, answering the question whether it was an attempt to intimidate the opposition.

"I don't think they are opposition," she said. "As to whether they [the detaining] were carried in accordance with the standard, properly, just from what was seen on the screen, it is very worrying, there were episodes of use of disproportionate force; whether it is intimidation, I will not talk about it."

Yesterday activists Narek Malyan, Artur Danielyan, and Narek Samsonyan stated that the police had detained them by "laying [them] on the asphalt."

And asked if she had a phone conversation with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, as Malyan claimed, Minasyan said: “I have not had a telephone or face-to-face conversation with Mr. Pashinyan; there was no such conversation."