Killed on 1st March: Families Warned Not To Talk To Reporters

The events of March 1st must be investigated in detail. The observations presented by the authorities do not correspond to the facts, The testimony of eye-witnesses, which we possess, paints a totally different picture. To date, law enforcement officials have not explained how the protestors were killed. And they died from gunshot wounds. Who fired those shots? There is still no answer to this question. If this situation continues, law enforcement will eventually declare that the protestors in fact shot themselves.

According to official statistics the following 8 individuals were killed on March 1st in the vicinity of the French Embassy in Yerevan:

Zakar Sargisi Hovhannisyan – born 1977
Hamlet Tadevosyan
Gor Sarkisi Kloyan – born 1979
Davit Afrendi Petrosyan
Tigran Hovsepi Khachatryan
Grigor Oniki Gevorgyan – born 1985
Hovhannes Hovhannisyan
Armen Farmanyan

Rumors continue to circulate that the number killed is much greater even though the authorities constantly repeat the above number. The rumors can be explained by the fact that the people no longer believe the official communiqu�s, especially given that in conditions of a State of Emergency a number of opposition newspapers have shut down and numerous websites have been blocked.

Family members of those killed have avoided meeting with reporters.

Gor Kloyan, Tigran Khachatryan and Grigor Gevorgyan were random passersby and were not participating in the demonstrations. This is what their families have testified to.

Tigran Khachatryan died from gunshot wounds to the head.

Gor Kloyan died from gunshot injuries.

Grigor Gevorgyan died from gunshot injuries. He was the father of two children. His father, Hovhannes Grigoryan, was killed fighting in the Karabakh War. The morgue informed his family that Grigor died from shrapnel from an explosive device, but relatives testify that he had received gunshots to the head. It is still not clear what gun fired those shots. The authorities are doing all in their power to prevent an expose of what actually occurred on that day. Family members of those killed have been visited by employees of the National Security Agency and warned not to speak to any reporters. Only reporters from the Haylur and H2 T.V. stations [Unzipped - government controlled] are allowed to speak to them. These reporters barrage the grieved family members with questions and are thus able to ‘extract’ a sentence or two out of them. These sentence naturally deal with presidential candidate Levon Ter-Petrosyan.

One thing is crystal clear – such an irresponsible and foolish propaganda ploy by the authorities will merely serve to inflame the present situation that is ready to blow-up at any second.


*source; for Armenian version - see here or comments section of this post (below).