Yerevan standoff makes headlines abroad


Yerevan standoff makes headlines abroad –

Armenianow – International media also have covered the Armenian protests against electricity price hikes that culminated in a violent dispersal early on Tuesday. 

The New York Times reported the news of the police using force to break up the protest, estimating the number of the crowd at everal hundred people. 

The Jerusalem Post, meanwhile, focused on the fact that the protest “was organized by young activists with no affiliation to any political parties.”

Reuters followed up on detentions of activists and injuries.

Russia Today gave a detailed picture of the situation since Monday when “thousands of people gathered in the center of Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, to demand that the head of the country retract the authorities’ decision to hike electricity prices for the public.”

Russia’s satellite television channel, though, does not mention that Armenia’s only electricity provider, the Electricity Networks of Armenia, is a daughter company of the Russian Inter RAO UES, but it supplies its coverage by videos, photos, tweets and live translations.

“Armenian police have blocked off one of the central streets of the country’s capital, Yerevan. A several-thousand-strong protest march is heading towards the president’s residence which is situated on the same street,” Russia Today reported Monday evening.

Russian Ren TV interviewed one of the protesters who said he finds similarities between Armenia’s protests and Ukraine’s Maidan, opposition-led street protests that led to the change of government in Kyiv in February 2014. The media outlet suggested that Armenia’s protests could be supported by the United States.

The Daily Star that already reported that the Armenian Police had cleared the protest site mentioned that protesters accused “President Serzh Sarkisian’s government of hiking power tariffs and failing to stem poverty in the landlocked Caucasus nation.” 

Meanwhile, in its short coverage The Washington Post pointed out that Armenia is a “landlocked country” whose “economy is hobbled by the longstanding closure of its borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey over the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.”


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