On August 10, RA Police detained the participants of "Walk and Dodgeball for Amulsar" event, who were playing dodgeball in front of the National Assembly Park. Among those detained were human rights activist Zara Hovhannisyan, Gndevaz resident, journalist Tehmine Yenoqyan, Chairman of "Green Armenia" Environmental and Educational NGO Hayk Grigoryan, Co-founder of "Force of Law" NGO Arman Gharibyan and others.
Some of the activists were playing with a ball, some of them had posters saying Amulsar and demanding the invalidation of the positive expert assessment opinion issued to Amulsar gold-bearing quartzite mine development project by Ministry of Nature Protection in 2016 and to cancel Amulsar project.
The police approached the participants several times during the action demanding to remove the posters, as, according to the police officer, it is considered a gathering. The non-fulfillment of the police demand was followed by the arrest of the protesters, who were taken to Malatia and Arabkir police stations. After staying in police stations for several hours, the protesters were released.
Tehmine Yenoqyan told EcoLur that the police had not informed them on what grounds they were detaining her. RA Human Rights Defender Arman Tatoyan made a post about the incident that took place today on his Facebook page, where he, in particular, says:
“The hotline of Human Rights Defender's staff received a number of calls regarding the apprehension of the citizens carrying out protest demonstration. Taking into account the alarm signals and the results of the social media monitoring, on the instructions of the Human Rights Defender, rapid response teams went to Malatia, Arabkir and other police stations where the detainees were held.
The ombudsman's representatives will have private talks with the detainees, get acquainted with the state of their rights and the grounds for their detention.”
August 10, 2020 at 23:13