The Armenian police indicated on Friday that they will not try to disperse thousands of people who are expected to rally on Sunday to mark the first anniversary of the 2008 post-election clashes in Yerevan.
The main opposition Armenian National Congress (HAK) plans to rally supporters outside the Matenadaran institute of ancient manuscripts and then stage a march through the city despite the municipal authorities’ refusal to authorize the protest.
Major-General Alik Sargsian, chief of the national police, made clear that the police will not enforce the ban. “The police are very calm,” he said. “Nothing [bad] is expected on March 1. Our people understand everything.”
“We too will act like victims. We too suffered casualties, our people also died on that day,” Sargsian told a news conference, referring to the deaths of two police servicemen in the March 1, 2008 clashes with opposition supporters that barricaded themselves outside the Yerevan mayor’s office. The violence also left eight civilians dead.
Sargsian said the police will use force only in the event of “any violation of public order.” “But we are convinced that people will calmly gather, pay their respects [to the March 1 victims] and go home,” he said.
As the police chief spoke to journalists, the HAK issued a statement urging law-enforcement bodies to work together with the opposition alliance in making sure that the upcoming rally is peaceful. Levon Zurabian, a senior HAK representative, said the organizers will take “unprecedented measures to maintain order during rally” and warned the police against taking “provocative actions.” “We are urging the police to cooperate, not to create problems, not to provoke the people,” he said.
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Nevertheless, nobody can say for sure that the event will pass off without incident, but all indications are that the opposition is not out to look for a fight and on the government’s side, it can really do without any trouble following the international backlash against the 1 March 2008 clashes. Previous rallies since the state of emergency was lifted were the same with police not interfering with unsanctioned rallies and opposition leaders maintaining control over their supporters. Even so, I know one bar in Yerevan that says it will close tomorrow and board up its door just in case.
However, such an action seems unwarranted in the present climate and even last year, the looting and clashes were isolated and not widespread.

Armenia accused of ‘flawed’ trials
In a corner of Alla Hovannisian’s living room in Yerevan is a small memorial to her son, with religious icons, fresh flowers, and an old school photograph.
Tigran died when he was 23, during civil unrest in the Armenian capital on March 1 last year, violence which shocked and divided this small country.
His mother says that when she first heard that he had been killed, she refused to believe it.
“I said it must be a mistake, it must be someone else’s body in the morgue, and my husband went a second time to check,” she recalls.
Pitched battles raged into the early hours of the morning after riot police moved in to end more than a week of demonstrations against the results of presidential elections which the opposition claimed were falsified.
The night sky was lit up with tracer bullet fire and flames rose from burning cars as police fired tear gas and fought with protesters who had set up barricades and armed themselves with petrol bombs and metal staves.
Alla’s son was one of several people who were shot during the clashes which left eight civilians and two policemen dead, causing the Armenian authorities to impose a state of emergency and send the army onto the streets.
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http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/02/2009225191624340903.html