By Naira Bulghadarian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — One Armenian journalist was hit by a police vehicle and another knocked unconscious while covering police crackdowns on protesters in Yerevan demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s resignation, on May 14.
The violent incidents condemned by Armenian media associations happened on Tuesday and Monday respectively when police detained scores of people blocking streets in the city center as part of the continuing anti-government protests led by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan.
A police van struck Nare Gevorgyan of Mediahub.am on one of those streets. Gevorgyan, who was taken to the hospital from the scene, said she avoided a serious injury despite feeling a “terrible pain in my knee.”
“I briefly lost my vision at that point, and if it weren’t for the police major, Mr. Levon Ghazaryan, I would have definitely fallen,” she told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Gevorgyan said she believes another officer who drove the van hit her deliberately. She claimed that other police cars were “also driving into people” who disrupted traffic through that street.
