YEREVAN (RFE/RL) — Several thousand protesters have marched toward Armenia’s presidential residence in Yerevan to demonstrate against rising electricity prices.
Participants organized an improvised sit-in on Baghramyan Avenue on June 22 as riot police blocked the crowd on its way to the area housing government offices.
Tension was high, with men wearing civilian clothes trying to force journalists out of the area.
Members of the group No to Plunder, which organized the rally, demanded that they be allowed free movement through the avenue, but police warned that the protest march was “unlawful.”
President Serzh Sarkisian proposed to meet a small group of protesters if demonstrators stopped the march, but the offer was rejected.
The Public Services Regulatory Commission of Armenia voted on June 17 to raise electricity prices by 16 percent to 49 drams ($0.1) per kilowatt hour (kWh). This was the third consecutive price hike in the past three years.
1 comment
All Armenians should unite against such a tyrant government
We should rule them…
They should not rule our suffering people ..
They had enough from tyrants …
We are more numbered than them
and more powerful
We know what means to live in Freedom …
We must teach them
What means to be free
Not in live in chains…
Their justice is in our hands
We must teach them how to behave …
We must act very fast …
No delay …The time is passing fast… fast
We no longer want our honest people to suffer…
Sylva Portoian, MD