By Naira Bulghadarian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Riot police clashed late on September 19 with angry protesters who gathered outside the main government building in Yerevan to demand Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s resignation following Azerbaijan’s large-scale military attack on Nagorno-Karabakh.
The protesters, who included refugees from Karabakh, blamed Pashinyan for the Azerbaijani offensive and demanded that Armenia intervene to prevent a mass killing and deportation of Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population.
Some participants of the spontaneous rally scuffled with security forces guarding the prime minister’s office located in Yerevan’s central Republic Square. The latter fired stun grenades to try to push the crowd away from the building.
The Armenian Ministry of Health said that several protesters and police officers were injured and hospitalized as a result.
Armenia’s Investigative Committee launched a criminal investigation into calls for violent overthrow of the “constitutional order” which it said were made by some of the little-known speakers at the rally. The committee said it made an unspecified number of arrests in connection with such calls.
