Violent Police Clashes with Protesters Heighten Tensions in Yerevan

Protesters are dispersed by riot police in Yerevan’s Sari Tagh neighborhood

YEREVAN (RFE/RL)”“Riot police clashed late on Friday with hundreds of people near a police compound in Yerevan occupied by gunmen affiliated with an Armenian opposition group.

The violence, which left three RFE/RL journalists injured, unfolded amid the sound of gunshots and explosions coming from the compound located in the city’s southern Erebuni district. It was not immediately clear whether security forces were conducting a large-scale operation there.

The protesters sympathetic to the gunmen unexpectedly tried to approach the building from the nearby Sari Tagh neighborhood overlooking it. Some of them threw stones when they were confronted by rows of riot police, who briefly fired stun grenades in response.

The chief of Yerevan’s police department, Ashot Karapetian, and other senior law-enforcement officers warned two protest leaders ”” Amen Martirosian and Levon Barseghian ”” to lead the crowd back to the city center.

“Armen, you can’t control them,”