http://themilitant.com/2015/7925/792551.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 79/No. 25 July 20, 2015
Armenia: Electricity hike,
cop attacks spark protests
Thousands rally in Yerevan, Armenia, June 26 against hike in
electrical rates. Demonstrations began June 19 after the government
approved a 17 percent increase. Protesters marched on the presidential
palace June 22 but were stopped by riot police on Baghramyan Avenue. The
marchers then staged a sit-in, known as the “No to Plunder” event.
Police used water cannons to break up the protest, injuring dozens of
people and arresting more than 200.
The crackdown back-fired. By the evening of June 23 some 15,000 people
had joined the sit-in, protesting the cops’ heavy-handed treatment. In
an effort to defuse the situation, President Serzh Sargsyan suspended
the rate hike June 28 pending an audit of the electricity company. Since
then the protests have dwindled, but not ended.
Armenia’s Electric Network has a monopoly on distribution and is owned
by the Russian company Inter RAO. The government has close ties to Moscow.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said July 2 that the protests
should not be used “to whip up anti-government sentiment although the
root of these events is purely economic.” He compared the developments
in Armenia to the start of the Maidan protests in Ukraine that led to
the fall of the pro-Moscow government there in 2014.
— EMMA JOHNSON
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home
