APRIL 9 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Serzh Sargsyan was sworn in as president of Armenia for a second consecutive five year term. An estimated 12,000 supporters of Mr Sargsyan’s main rival, Raffi Hovannisyan, protested only a few kilometres from the inauguration ceremony. They say the presidential election of Feb. 18 was fixed.
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(News report from Issue No. 131, published on April 12 2013)
MARCH 29 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Raffi Hovannisian, the runner-up in a presidential election in Armenia in February, said he would end a hunger strike on April 1, media reported. He had started the hunger strike to protest against what he described as a rigged vote. Mr Hovannisian promised to continue street protests.
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(News report from Issue No. 129, published on March 29 2013)
MARCH 10 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian opposition leader Raffi Hovannisian began a hunger strike to protest against what he claims was a rigged Feb. 18 presidential election. Mr Hovannisian, a former foreign minister, came second in the election with 37% of the vote. Incumbent president Serzh Sarksyan won the election with 59%.
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(News report from Issue No. 127, published on March 15 2013)
MARCH 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s main opposition leaders lodged a complaint that the Feb. 18 presidential election won by the incumbent Serzh Sarksyan was rigged. Since the result hundreds of people, lead by Raffi Hovannisian who came second in the election with 37% of the vote, have demonstrated in central Yerevan.
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(News report from Issue No. 126, published on March 8 2013)
FEB. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Azerbaijan arrested two opposition leaders and accused them of orchestrating clashes between protesters and police in a provincial town last month. Human rights groups have said that the Azerbaijani authorities are using the clashes as an excuse to clampdown on their opponents.
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(News report from Issue No. 123, published on Feb. 8 2013)
FEB. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Azerbaijan arrested two opposition leaders and accused them of orchestrating clashes between protesters and police in a provincial town last month. Human rights groups have said that the Azerbaijani authorities are using the clashes as an excuse to clampdown on their opponents.
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(News report from Issue No. 123, published on Feb. 8 2013)
JAN. 26 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Riot police in Baku detained roughly 40 people at a demonstration in support of protesters who had clashed with police two days earlier in the provincial town of Ismayilli, media reported. The authorities have poured in hundreds of reinforcements to quash the protesters in Ismayilli, roughly 200km north of Baku.
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(News report from Issue No. 122, published on Feb. 1 2013)
JAN. 26 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Riot police in Baku detained roughly 40 people at a demonstration in support of protesters who had clashed with police two days earlier in the provincial town of Ismayilli, media reported. The authorities have poured in hundreds of reinforcements to quash the protesters in Ismayilli, roughly 200km north of Baku.
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(News report from Issue No. 122, published on Feb. 1 2013)
JAN. 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – It wasn’t until police reinforcements arrived on Jan. 24, according to media, that the authorities were able to regain control of the town of Ismayilli.
Since the previous afternoon, the town, about 200km north-west of Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, had been the scene of street fighting between police and young men frustrated by the lack of jobs and an increasingly high-handed political elite.
The fighting erupted on Jan. 23 after a car crash reportedly involving the son of a government minister. Both the trigger, alleged favouritism towards the political elite, and the resulting vicious backlash, were telling.
This was Azerbaijan’s worst violence for a decade. It came less than a year after similar, though smaller, street fighting, also triggered by the political elites’ arrogance, in another town.
The fighting in Ismayilli will no doubt draw a similar reaction from the authorities. They will pour in police to clampdown on dissenters and mount a PR campaign to discredit the protesters.
Azerbaijan’s economy is booming, luxury goods crowd Baku’s streets and millions are lavished on prestige projects such Eurovision last year. The street violence, though, suggests that there are large swathes of Azerbaijan’s under-classes who are not so happy.
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(News report from Issue No. 121, published on Jan. 25 2013)
JAN. 20 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Roughly 1,000 people protested outside Georgia’s presidential palace to demand that President Mikheil Saakashvili resign, one of the biggest political demonstrations since a parliamentary election in October. Georgians are due to vote in a presidential election in Oct. 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 121, published on Jan. 25 2013)
