Armenia soldiers join anti-government protests in Yerevan

Protesters have demanded Serzh Sargsyan, Armenia's prime minister, to step down [Vahram Baghdasaryan/Reuters]
Protesters have demanded Serzh Sargsyan, Armenia's prime minister, to step down [Vahram Baghdasaryan/Reuters]
Hundreds of soldiers have joined anti-government protests in the Armenian capital of Yerevan on Monday, accusing the country's prime minister of corruption and authoritarian rule.
In a response to the ongoing protests, the Armenian defence ministry said it would take harsh measures against any member of the military taking part in the demonstrations.
Al Jazeera's Robin Forestier-Walker, reporting from Yerevan, said Monday's events are a surprising development.
"There are pictures and videos of the soldiers walking down main Yerevan streets. We understand that they are on active duty and that they are part of a peacekeeping force for missions abroad," Walker said.
"We have also seen members of the clergy coming out into the streets to take part in the protests," he added.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Latest on Lebanon

  More air strikes  have been reported in southern Beirut  and Lebanon, as Israel tells  more than 30 villages in the south  to evacuate A  major road out of Lebanon was hit  overnight -  pictures show a large crater  near the border crossing into Syria, where thousands of people have been fleeing. Israel says the route was being used to transport weapons Rockets continue to be fired into Israel from Lebanon -  watch the moment our correspondent  runs for cover after hearing gunfire and explosions Lebanon's health ministry said earlier 37 people have been killed in Israeli ground and air attacks in the past 24 hours; more than 2,000 people have now been killed since last October In Iran, the supreme leader  defended his country's missile attack on Israel  earlier this week as a "minimum punishment" in a rare public speech
Read more

Book Review

By  Lynn Hunt Fareed Zakaria seeks lessons for the present in various European revolutions, but the “liberal” English and Dutch examples he singles out as exemplary barely qualify as revolutionary at all. Reviewed: Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present by Fareed Zakaria Norton, 383 pp., $29.99 Fareed Zakaria is a captain of the punditry industry. A longtime host of his own  CNN  show on international and domestic politics, a columnist at  The   Washington Post , and the author of best-selling books on current affairs, he seems to have been everywhere and read everything. Born in India of Muslim parents, educated at Yale and Harvard, and now hobnobbing with heads of state, he maintains just enough emotional distance from the United States to look at our internal divisions and external entanglements with a relatively cool eye. In  Age of Revolutions  Zakaria goes all the way back to the Netherlands in the 1500s to t...
Read more

One demand now

Image
 Daily Star PM, her cabinet colleagues must step down, say protesters from a mammoth rally at Central Shaheed Minar The Central Shaheed Minar and adjacent roads were full to the brim as thousands of people, including teachers, lawyers, guardians with their children, civil society members, cultural and political activists, freedom fighters and day labourers, from across the capital braved the rain and joined the anti-discrimination student movement yesterday afternoon. PHOTO: NAIMUR RAHMAN Turning down the prime minister's call for dialogue, the organisers of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement yesterday came up with a one-point demand -- the resignation of Sheikh Hasina and her cabinet members. They made the announcement at a rally attended by tens of thousands of people at the Central Shaheed Minar around 5:00pm. For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Nahid Islam, a key organiser of the anti-discrimination student movement, surrounded by fellow ...
Read more