 |
|
Thousands rally in Yerevan, Armenia, June 26 against hike in electrical rates. Demonstrations began June 19 after the government approved a 17 percent increase. Protesters marched on the presidential palace June 22 but were stopped by riot police on Baghramyan Avenue. The marchers then staged a sit-in, known as the “No to Plunder” event. Police used water cannons to break up the protest, injuring dozens of people and arresting more than 200.
The crackdown back-fired. By the evening of June 23 some 15,000 people had joined the sit-in, protesting the cops’ heavy-handed treatment. In an effort to defuse the situation, President Serzh Sargsyan suspended the rate hike June 28 pending an audit of the electricity company. Since then the protests have dwindled, but not ended. Armenia’s Electric Network has a monopoly on distribution and is owned by the Russian company Inter RAO. The government has close ties to Moscow. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said July 2 that the protests should not be used “to whip up anti-government sentiment although the root of these events is purely economic.” He compared the developments in Armenia to the start of the Maidan protests in Ukraine that led to the fall of the pro-Moscow government there in 2014. |
| — EMMA JOHNSON |