“We are not guilty, the tractor was implementing its job”- justifies the police officials

Today, on February 15 of 2011, around 4:30 p.m. the line of cars accumulated as a result of the roadblock by the police around Jajur village area in Shirak region moved to Vanadzor, after the Akhuryan Police officials suddenly left the controlled area of the road.

Prior to that, the gathered drivers in Vanadzor had held a rally with the participation of “Heritage” Party representatives, National Assembly Deputies: Zaruhi Postanjyan, Stepan Safaryan, chairman of the party: Armen Martirosyan and Vanadzor representative Garnik Sahakyan. After the rally, the participants moved towards the line of cars arriving from Jajur.

At the junction of Mets Parni village in Shirak region, the drivers moving from Vanadzor and the ones coming from Gyumri met, united their cars and continued heading to Vanadzor in one line.

At a distance of 500 meters from Vanadzor, near the crossroads of Vanadzor-Stepanavan, more than 4 cars belonging to the Road Police, 20 people dressed in police uniforms as well as other police officials dressed in civil uniforms were waiting for the car line. Before the car line could reach this section of road leading to Vanadzor, where the Police were waiting, a snow removing tractor also parked there. The cars of the Road Police and the tractor parked in the center of the road blocked the whole area making it inaccessible both for the car line and for the Vanadzor-Gyumri traffic. During 30 minutes, a 1 km long congestion of more than 80 cars was formed along Vanadzor-Spitak road including taxes, trucks and a military car.

This fact brought about frustration among the passengers and they had to come out of cars and tried to cross the blocked area on foot. Shortly, the area of the road was teeming with discontented passengers, rally participant drivers and soon was accompanied with the heads of Lori Region Police Administration, Vanadzor Police Department, and Lori Region Road Police. The latter were complaining that the rally participants had created a chaos for no reason and were creating a traffic jam. According to the official clarification provided by them, they have no relation to the tractor; it was merely implementing its job: it was removing the snow off the road/by the way, within the whole timeline, the tractor was immobile/.

After the negotiations with the deputies, about 30 minutes later the tractor moved off the road as signaled by the “police heads” unblocking the area. As a result of “giving orders and instructions” on Road Police part, only 20 minutes later the road became accessible again.

Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor office will publish more detailed information tomorrow on February 16, 2011.