Police Beat Opposition Teenagers

I just read a news report about plain-clothed policemen beating several teenagers for handing out leaflets and making pro-opposition statements through a sound system of some kind. Numerous youths were rushed to the hospital, they were beaten so bad. The attackers even used guns to hit them. Unsurprisingly, the Yerevan police claimed that the officers themselves were attacked first, which seems dubious.

RFE/RL quoted one of the teenagers stating that: “They pulled me from the back and toppled to the ground,” said Sahak Muradian, a 14-year-old HAK supporter. “One of them said, ‘You too are from the opposition?’ And then five or six of them started beating me. One of them also hit me with a pistol.”

But why beat teenagers? I can understand how perceived insolence from adult protesters would lead to beatings and jailings and so forth by the police or attacks by mysterious thick-necked characters, as has been reported for years. But these victims are just kids. Perhaps the toddler-aged children of opposition supporters will be next. Who can say at this rate of oppression against people using their democratic rights to speak their minds?

Photo courtesy of Photolur.