Sunday, May 14 2017 16:18

ArmInfo. Today in Yerevan community of Avan the police used violence  to lawmaker  Zaruhi  Postandjyan,  the candidate for mayor's post, who, in accordance with Armenian regulations,  has an immunity status.  Particularly, several policemen forcibly pushed   Postandjyan out of the  electoral office of Republican Party in Avan, and pulled  her to the police car. All the attempts of Postandjyan to escape were in vain, three officers held her tightly and kept on pulling to the car. Law maker's shouts and protests . However, policemen could not force her to sit in the car, but her daughter has been taken to the police station of Nor Nork. All the attempts of ArmInfo to get  an official comment from the Police if the actions of police officers were legitimate, have not succeed by now.

The reason for the incident was the signal Postandjyan got about the electoral bribes being distributed at the pre electoral office of RPA in Avan  district. Postandjyan hurried  up there together with her daughter. But the employees of the office  got the lists hidden and  Postandjyan did not succeed to get those. It is notable that police officers acted in benefit of RPA, and they required Postandjyan to leave the territory. Even journalists were offered to abandon the  RPA branch office. When Postandjyan stated she does not trust the police, one of the officers said " All the people trusts us, and this is Your problem." When the law maker woman at last succeeded with opening the box where electoral lists were kept, the police officers reacted very fast and pulled her out of the office. The police officers also raised obstacles for reporters' work, trying to disturb shooting the situation on the camera.

To note, observance missions kept fixing the violations during the process of the elections. For instance, at one of the polling sites in Erebouni RPA office representatives took the camera from  Haykakan Zhamanak reporter. Vardges Gaspari, the member of observing mission " Observer citizen" was forced by the employees of 9/22 polling site. Gaspari accentuated that he is not intended to apply to the police, because when he applied to the police previously due to similar incident, the Head of the Police Vladimir Gasparyan promised him to break his bones personally and to bury him.

The Observer Citizen mission fixed the following cases of electoral right violations: at 7/29 polling site  a fact of voting instead   of another person was fixed, at the 4/1  polling site the voting was controlled by trusted persons of RPA. A similar situation was observed at 5/1 polling site.