Gagrule.net

Gagrule.net News, Views, Interviews worldwide

First batch of Armenian police forces head to frontline positions

By

Armenian police forces

The police forces of Armenia will conduct military duty, replacing the draftees across the Armenian-Azerbaijani state border. Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who was the initiator of the move, was present today at the solemn ceremony, marking the leave of the police troops to the frontline.

“From today on, the police forces join the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia to defend our motherland and stand by our soldiers and the army. I have already thanked the servicemen of the police forces and their family members for the shown commitment to take part in this important mission,” PM Pashinyan ssaid in a Facebook live stream.

Police find thousands of military food supply cans in trucks owned by arrested MP’s NGO, wife reportedly involved

By

Police find thousands of military food

YEREVAN, JUNE 19,  Amid the ongoing scandalous investigation into MP Manvel Grigoryan’s suspected embezzlement of military supplies and illegal possession of firearms, the organized crime unit of Yerevan police have received a report that two trucks loaded with military food supplies are parked in a parking lot at 22 Soghomon Taronts Street.

The drivers of the trucks, both members of the Yerkrapah Volunteer Union – a paramilitary organization chaired by the arrested MP, who is also a former general, have been placed under arrest.

Police found nearly 3000 cans of canned meat labeled Not For Sale: Soldier’s Share.  This type of canned meat is not available for sale anywhere and is the military food supply for the armed forces.

According to the drivers, Nazik Amiryan – the wife of the arrested MP – had instructed them to load the supplies into the truck on June 16 from the Yerkrapah Volunteers Union headquarters in Yerevan. Circumstances are being clarified.

Member of Parliament Manvel Grigoryan, a former general who chairs the Yerkrapah Volunteer Union, a paramilitary organization, was arrested on June 16 by national security service in his hometown of Ejmiatsin (Vagharshapat).

The lawmaker from the Republican Party faction is suspected in embezzling military supplies and illegal possession of firearms. Upon searching the compound of Grigoryan, agents found huge amounts of military weapons and ammunition and supplies, including donated food and clothing which was meant to be sent to soldiers in Artsakh back in 2016. The donated supplies even include letters written by schoolchildren during the days of the April War of 2016.

The Prosecutor General requested an extraordinary sitting of the parliament to take place to strip the MP of parliamentary immunity, in order to keep him in pre-trial custody.

The MP has denied any wrongdoing, and in a letter sent to the Speaker said he will restore his reputation, and called on his colleagues to strip him of immunity since “he has no desire to obstruct the investigation”.

A private zoo and a large car collection were also found during the search of the compound.

On June 19, the parliament voted to strip the MP of immunity and approved launching criminal proceedings.

 

Armenian police break up protests after PM rejects demands to quit

By

Armenian police detained three opposition leaders

Armenian police detained three opposition leaders

YEREVAN (Reuters) – Armenian police detained three opposition leaders on Sunday and dispersed some protesters on the 10th day of demonstrations against the appointment of former President Serzh Sarksyan as prime minister, an opposition politician and witnesses said.

Protesters accuse Sarksyan of clinging to power after he was appointed premier this month following 10 years as president. Tens of thousands of opponents have marched through Yerevan, blocking streets in the city center and staging sit-ins.

Police said in a statement that opposition politician Nikol Pashinyan and two other lawmakers had been “forcibly removed” from the protest but had not been arrested. It also said it had started to disperse protesters “guided by the law.”

The statement was issued shortly after Pashinyan held talks with Sarksyan, who walked out of the meeting after accusing his opponents of trying to “blackmail” the authorities.

One of the protest leaders, Ararat Mirzoyan, wrote on his Facebook page that he had been “illegally detained” along with Pashinyan and a third opposition politician, as well as other protesters.

A Reuters witness said police armed with batons and shields cleared at least one area of the capital where protests had been taking place, but demonstrators remained in other areas.

At his brief meeting on Sunday with Pashinyan, Sarkysan had said: “This is not talks, not a dialogue, it’s just an ultimatum, blackmail of the state, of the legitimate authorities.”

He said his opponents “did not learn the lesson of March 1”, referring to a protest rally after his re-election in 2008 when 10 people were killed in clashes with police.

Parliament voted on Tuesday to allow Sarksyan to become premier.

Under a revised constitution approved in a 2015 referendum, most state powers in the small, ex-Soviet state have shifted to the prime minister while the presidency has become a largely ceremonial post.

“No one has dared and will dare speak to us in the language of threats. I am telling you: you have no understanding of the situation in the country. The situation is different to the one you knew 15-20 days ago,” Pashinyan had told Sarksyan on Sunday.

“The situation in Armenia has changed, you don’t have the power of which you are told. In Armenia, the power has passed to the people,” he said.

Turkey police confront HDP party supporters

By

Police in Turkey have confronted a group of supporters of the Peoples’ Democratic Party’s (HDP) in Istanbul, preventing them from joining a march by the country’s biggest pro-Kurdish party.

The “Conscience and Justice” march was underway on Sunday, when law enforcement forces attacked participants with tear gas canisters and rubber bullets, AFP reported.

The demonstrators demanded the release of HDP parliamentarians and journalists.

The HDP is Turkey’s second-largest opposition party after the Republican People’s Party (CHP). It has come under increasing pressure since the government launched a crackdown on the outlawed anti-Ankara Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the country’s southeast two years ago.

The party says thousands of its supporters have been arrested since the onset of the government campaign.

The government says it has killed thousands of the militants since the launch of the operation. The HDP contests the claim, saying many of the fatalities are civilians.

Ankara has also imposed bans and prison sentences on four of the party’s parliamentarians, accusing them of links to “terror” organizations, including the PKK. The party denies having any links with the separatist militants.

The party is also critical of the administration’s ongoing sweeping crackdown on the people it accuses of links to Fetullah Gulen. Ankara says the US-based cleric masterminded a failed July 2016 coup against the government.

Thousands have been either imprisoned or dismissed from their jobs during the operations, in what is seen as, the authorities’ intolerance of all dissent.

Turkey police hold rights activists, including Amnesty chief

By

police,Turkish police have arrested eight leading human rights activists including Amnesty International’s Turkey director Idil Eser in Istanbul.
Two trainers – from Germany and Sweden – were also arrested in the raid on a digital security workshop at a hotel in Buyukada.

The police raid was “blatantly without cause”, an Amnesty statement said, according to BBC News.
The group’s whereabouts are unknown. Police have jailed more than 50,000 people since a coup plot a year ago.
The police action “is a grotesque abuse of power and highlights the precarious situation facing human rights activists in the country”, said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

“Idil Eser and those detained with her must be immediately and unconditionally released.”
Turkey remains under a state of emergency imposed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after rogue army officers tried to oust him in a coup on 15 July 2016.
The post-coup crackdown has targeted tens of thousands of public servants accused of supporting US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.
The European Parliament has deplored the crackdown on Mr Erdogan’s opponents in

Turkey and called for a suspension of talks on it joining the EU if Mr Erdogan is formally granted sweeping new powers.
A controversial referendum in April backed constitutional changes that would turn Turkey into a presidential republic, diminishing parliament’s role.

Armenian Police Use Force Against Opposition Mayoral Candidate

By

YEREVAN — Police in Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, used force against an opposition mayoral candidate, during city council elections on May 14, according to her party and video footage.

Zarui Postanjian and her daughter Lilit Drampian were forced out of the campaign office of incumbent Mayor Taron Margarian, where they had come to check whether reports about lists of voters who allegedly agreed to receive money for their votes were true.

Officials of Postanian’s Erkir Tsirani (Country of the Apricot) party told RFE/RL that Drampian, 22, was hospitalized after the incident and diagnosed with a concussion.

Meanwhile, the Central Election Commission said on May 15 that, according to a nearly complete count, the ruling Republican Party received more than 71 percent of votes for city council.

According to the commission, Erkir Tsirani received less than 8 percent of the vote, and candidates from the Elk (Exit) political bloc won about 22 percent.

By law, the Yerevan City Council appoints the capital’s mayor.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/armenia-yerevan-mayor-candidate-postanjian-removed-margarian/28489363.html?ltflags=mailer

Istanbul police hamper Armenian Genocide march

By

The police in Istanbul hampered Armenian Genocide commemoration events after members of the opposition People’s Democratic Party started a peaceful march from their headquarters in the city’s Şişli district.
Held under the slogan Confront the Genocide, the event was joined also by Armenian youth association Nor Zartonk (new awakening).
Speaking to reporters at the protest site, a spokesperson for the organization, Norayr Olgar called for the different ethnic groups in Turkey must to eventually come to terms with their past to make future peace possible.
Melis Tatan, the head of the party’s district headquarters, said he sees Turkey still continuing its genocidal policies.
“They continue committing genocide by naming the schools and streets here after Talaat [Pasha] and Armenian-populated districts – after Turkish villains. The Genocide  continued also with the covering up of the murders of Hrant Dink, Sevak Balikci and Marisa Kucuk,” he said.

Turkey’s Diyarbakir Explosion rocks police headquarters

By

A powerful explosion has hit near a riot police headquarters in Turkey’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir.

Medics said at least four people were injured in the blast that rocked the largest Kurdish-majority city on Tuesday.

The blast could be heard in several areas of Diyarbakir, reports said. Gray smoke was reportedly seen rising from the area.

Ambulances and police were sent to the blast’s scene.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the explosion occurred during the repair of a vehicle at the police compound.

Tensions have been running high in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated southeast since a ceasefire declared by the PKK collapsed in 2015 in the wake of Ankara’s military operations against the Kurdish group’s positions both inside the country as well as in northern Iraq.

Turkey has declared the PKK a terrorist organization and has banned it. The militant group has been calling for an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984.

In response to the military raids, PKK militants have stepped up their attacks against Turkish security forces over the past 18 months.

The blast comes few days before a referendum on constitutional changes. The April 16 plebiscite is mainly aimed at abolishing the office of the prime minister and giving more executive powers to the president. Critics say the vote would give the president dictatorial powers.

Germany: Massive German police operation targets Turkish nationalist boxing gang

By

german-otoman-criminalsThe police operation across six states targeted Ottoman Germania, a Turkish nationalist boxing gang. Authorities classify the group as rocker-like gang similar to the Hells Angels.

Nearly 1,500 German police carried out countrywide raids on Wednesday targeting the Turkish nationalist boxing gang Ottoman Germania, in what authorities described as a major blow to organized crime.

Police, including elite commandos, raided nearly 50 homes, businesses and offices to conduct searches that yielded weapons, ammunition, drugs and 53,000 euros in cash.

One of the raids targeted the so-called World Chapter of Ottoman Germania Boxing Club in Dietzenbach, located south of Frankfurt. Raids were also carried out in the states of Hessen, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, North-Rhine-Westphalia, Niedersachsen and Hamburg.

Authorities said the goal of the operation was to gather evidence and understand the structure of the organization. The interior minister of the state of Saarland, Klaus Bouillon, said the operation was successful in breaking up Ottoman Germania.

Among those arrested were two 21-year-olds wanted on suspicion of attempted murder.

The two 21-year-olds stand accused of carrying out a grenade attack in August on a shisha café frequented by the rival Kurdish gang Bahoz after suspected members of the group attacked and wounded two members of Ottoman Germania in the city of Saarbrücken. The 28-year-old president of the “Ottoman Saar” local chapter was arrested in a police raid on Tuesday and is accused of ordering the attack.

Authorities have for some time worried about conflict between the Ottoman Germania and Bahoz, accusing the two groups of carrying the political conflict between Turks and Kurds in Turkey into Germany with acts of violence.

Security officials classify both groups as rocker-like gangs that in structure and behavior are similar to the Hells Angels, only without motorcycles. Ottoman Germania describes itself as a boxing club, but authorities believe the group has nothing to do with the sport.

Founded in April 2015, Ottoman Germania is estimated to have 20 chapters and 2,500 members in Germany, according to official estimates. Including branches in Turkey, Austria, Switzerland and Sweden the group has some 3,500 estimated members.

Peter Beuth, the interior minister of Hessen, said that “regardless of under which mantle criminals believe they can operate in our country we will go after them with all the power of a state of law.”

Source: http://www.dw.com/en/massive-german-police-operation-targets-turkish-nationalist-boxing-gang/a-36331416

 

Ankara police, activists clash on bombing anniversary

By

boming-unverTurkish police used tear gas and plastic bullets to prevent pro-Kurdish activists holding a protest to mark the one-year anniversary on Monday of the country’s worst attack in its modern history in the capital Ankara, Freemalaysiatoday.com reports, citing an AFP correspondent.
One hundred and three people were killed on October 10, 2015 when suicide bombers said to be linked to Islamic State (IS) jihadists blew themselves up in a crowd of pro-Kurdish peace activists planning to hold a rally outside Ankara’s main train station, .
Nearly 500 people were wounded, some of whom are still receiving treatment.
A crowd of more than 150 chanted “murderous state” as a line of police and water cannon trucks refused to let them through to the site of the attack to commemorate the the one-year anniversary, the correspondent said.
Hundreds of people carrying placards and flags from different associations were also stopped by a group of at least 20 police officers carrying anti-riot shields.
Police then used tear gas and plastic bullets against the group, some of whom threw bottles and stones. Some were hit by police truncheons as they scattered, covering their mouths to limit the effects of the tear gas.
But demonstrators said relatives of the victims — including parents and children — had been allowed through to pay their respects at the site of the attack before the commemoration began.
When the moment came to pause for silence at the precise time of the attack at 10:04am (0704 GMT), the crowd burst into applause vowing that they would not let it ever be forgotten.
There has been considerable frustration among relatives of those killed over the slowness of the investigation and no-one has ever been brought to justice over the attack.
The attack came at a time of considerable social tension in Turkey as the government wages a crackdown against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and its supporters.