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• Nightmare on Paronyan: Demonstrator tells of horror and resolve

Shame on the Armenian government. What a Stalinist dictatorship. Is cthis what the armenian people have suffered for? A cheap third world government by tyranny? Beating women; how strong Armenian men, police and soldiers have become. They are mindless ingrates....

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“Then I don’t remember well, I only felt that something hot flowing down my face,” Grizelda says. “I thought that the “disgrace” had ended at Opera Square but when I saw how many troops were taken to the area adjacent to the Myasnikyan monument and that people were preparing for self-defense, I understood that we would be slain and I was ready for being slain.”

Grizelda Ghazaryan was in the ranks of protestors together with her 24-year-old daughter Gayane and the wife of the former deputy defense minister Vahan Shirkhanyan. At about 8.30 pm, they left the area near the Mayor’s Office and the Myasnikyan monument and went on foot up towards Paronyan Street building N18 where the Shirkhanyan family lives.

“My daughter felt sick and we decided to go to the Shirkhanyans for a cup of tea. When we reached the passage on Mashtots Avenue we saw how many soldiers had filled that area. Pushing us those soldiers took us to the crossroads of Paronyan and Leo streets. We were going on foot to Paronayn 18, however near the corner building on Paronyan 14 the soldiers stopped and a group of helmeted soldiers entered their ranks,” Grizelda says.

She says that among the military she saw one familiar officer whom she often saw at Liberty Square. She approached him and said: “What are you doing, what a fratricidal war is this?”

Then shots were heard. Grizelda says: “I thought that was the end, we would all be killed there and were thinking where at that moment was my son in the crowd and perhaps he was being fired on at that moment. We all began to shout as the shots were fired. Before that people were coming and leaving on the sidewalks, but the helmeted military blocked the sidewalks too.”

Grizelda says that after all that having lost herself she approached the same familiar-looking officer and said that when all that was over she would tear his shoulder-straps. In reply to Grizelda’s words, the officer hit the woman in the belly with a truncheon. The officer was taken away from the women, but continued to curse them.

Under the torrent of shots Grizelda says her daughter Gayane began to shout: “Turks, what are you doing? They have something to lose, and what do you have to lose? Whose interests do you defend? The country belongs to us, citizens.”

Grizelda says that Gayane was still shouting when soldiers attacked her.

“I saw one of the entrance doors to the building and wanted to reach there. But when I wanted to enter, I felt a heavy blow on my head. I heard people shouting behind me: ‘Catch that whore, bring that whore here’. They were saying that about my daughter. I saw them drag Gayane by the hood to the middle of the street and begin to hit my daughter with truncheons. From the place where I fell I saw four or five people kicking my daughter. I heard the voice of Vahan Shirkhanyan’s wife: ‘Don’t hit the wife of Rafael Ghazaryan, don’t kill the girl.’”

Grizelda says that someone in military uniform stood above her head. Then he brought her daughter, by dragging her. Gayane was not able to walk.

“I was shouting – scoundrel, brute, Turk, and heard an answer in Russian in a very calm tone: “I have saved your and your daughter’s lives.” Then he drew us to that entrance, also Shirkhanyan’s wife, and shut the door,” Grizelda says.

Beaten and humiliated by her own police and military, the women began to knock at residents’ doors. They did not have a response on the ground floor. On the second floor one woman let them in her apartment.

“She let us in and there was no room there already, so many people had entered there. They were all passers-by. Then we heard some crying in the backyard, we said come in but be quiet. They would have come alerted by those voices and would have beaten them. The owner of the flat had lost herself, said: “Please, go away from the windows, a bus is on fire down there, if it explodes the debris of the glass will fall on you.”

Grizelda tells with horror about the scene that they witnessed already looking from the windows.

“There was a real war at the Paronyan-Leo intersection. I kept thinking about my son whom I left in the area near the Myasnikyan monument. When I finally got in touch with him, he said it was calm near where he was. Until 1.30 am we waited for ambulance service, which did not arrive. Then we ourselves went to Republican Hospital by car.”

Grizelda shows her back, shoulders all in bruises. Her daughter is in the same condition. Gayane even cannot walk because of pain.

Grizelda Ghazaryan has turned to the prosecutor’s office, the ombudsman, the OSCE office.

“That was a purposeful murder, I recognized them, they recognized me. They know that I am an active participant of the movement, and finally I am a witness, because I recognized that officer by face. I don’t know his name, but I will know,” she says.

Grizelda participated in the opposition rallies and marches every day. She says that for nine days in succession she had not seen a single unlawful act.

“You know, there is no coming to power on blood. It was a public protest. Do not let them think that they have broken people’s will with that all. As for myself, as long as I exist I will struggle,” she says and continues, “The country should be a country. I don’t want my son, my daughter to leave here, you understand, I don’t want that.”