Hostages Released In Armenian Police Station

What You Need To Know:

✓ The last four captives were released in Yerevan, Armenia after a six-day hold up in a police station.

✓ The hostage taking led to anti-government protests outside the police station where the captives were being held, with protestors numbering in the hundreds.

✓ “Masses were electrified in the street to support claims that this group was making not so much in regards to their views on the authorities but mostly their position on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement.”

✓ “They were against any handover of any slices of territory to Azerbaijan as part of any peace deals.”

The last four captives were released in Yerevan, Armenia after a six-day holdup in a police station. The hostage takers demanded the resignation of Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan, criticized by the captors for corruption and a clampdown on civil liberties. They also demanded the release of imprisoned opposition leader Jirair Sefilian, a leader of last year's Electric Yerevan protest movement.

The hostage taking led to anti-government protests outside the police station where the captives were being held, with protestors numbering in the hundreds. According to Hohvannes Nokokhosyan, lecturer at the American University of Armenia, the hostage takers have a modest group of sympathizers, despite the large number of individuals in the streets. “Masses were electrified in the street …to support claims that this group was making not so much in regards to their views on the authorities but mostly their position on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement.” The group, which refers to itself as the daredevils, has for years held a firm position in regards to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan: “They were against any handover of any slices of territory to Azerbaijan as part of any peace deals,” says Nokokhosyan.

Authorities are in the process of mediating the crisis and they intend to negotiate a settlement.

Hromadske’s Nataliya Gumenyuk and Andriy Kulykov spoke to Hohvannes Nokokhosyan, Lecturer at the American University of Armenia via Skype on July 24th, 2016 in Kyiv.