Three detained at Strong Armenia office in Gyumri

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Strong Armenia Alliance has stated that police officers entered its office in Gyumri and detained three individuals.

According to the alliance, “the purpose of such forceful actions is to disrupt our headquarters’ work. Lawyers Artush Hakobyan and Hayk Harutyunyan are not being allowed to enter and protect the rights of those individuals.”

Additional details were provided by attorney Artush Hakobyan, Sputnik Armenia reported.

“We have now arrived at the office, but the door is closed and we have no information about whether there are people inside or not. If there are, we do not know what actions are being carried out,” he said, adding that refusing to open the door was obstructing a lawyer’s professional activities.

Artur Khudinyan, assistant to Armenia’s minister of internal affairs, stated that three people were detained at the Strong Armenia Alliance’s Gyumri office on suspicion of distributing election bribes.

Earlier, after casting his vote, Samvel Karapetyan, the alliance’s candidate for prime minister, said that detentions and arrests of the alliance’s supporters were continuing on election day. He also stated that more than 100 individuals linked to the political force had been detained on June 6.

Regular National Assembly elections are underway in Armenia. The country’s 2,005 polling stations opened at 8:00 a.m. The voter registry includes 2,485,851 registered voters. Polling stations will remain open until 8:00 p.m.

A total of 18 political forces are participating in the parliamentary elections: two electoral alliances and 16 political parties. The electoral threshold is 4% for parties and 8% for alliances.