2008 Armenian presidential election protests
A series of anti-government riots took place in Armenia following presidential elections held on 19 February 2008. Protests broke out in the Armenian capital Yerevan, organized by supporters of presidential candidate and former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan and other opposition leaders.
| March 1 events | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Protests at Freedom Square on 24 February, tents set up by protesters, demonstrations at Myasnikyan Square on 1 March. Police forces occupying the Freedom Square weeks after the forcible suppression on 23 March. | |||
| Date | 20 February – 2 March 2008 (11 days) | ||
| Location | Yerevan, Armenia | ||
| Caused by | Alleged electoral fraud | ||
| Goals | New elections | ||
| Resulted in | Peaceful protests suppressed by force
| ||
| Parties | |||
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| Lead figures | |||
Levon Ter-Petrosyan Robert Kocharyan (incumbent president) | |||
| Number | |||
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| Casualties | |||
| Death(s) | 10 (8 protesters, 1 policeman, 1 soldier) | ||
| Injuries | 200 | ||
| Arrested | 106 | ||
| 7 shops looted 63 vehicles set on fire | |||
The protests began on 20 February, lasted for 10 days in Yerevan's Freedom Square, and involved tens of thousands of demonstrators during the day and hundreds camping out overnight. Despite the urges of the government to stop the demonstrations, the protests continued until 1 March. After nine days of peaceful protests at Freedom Square, the national police and military forces tried to disperse the protesters on 1 March. On the morning of 1 March, police and army units dispersed the 700 to 1,000 protesters who remained overnight, beating them with truncheons and electric-shock devices. As a result, 10 people were killed. As of 4 March, many protesters were still missing. On 1 March, Ter-Petrosyan was placed under de facto house arrest.
At noon on 1 March, a crowd of at least 10,000 protesters held a rally in front of the French embassy in Yerevan. Police officers pulled away from the area by 4 pm, as they were overwhelmed by the growing number of demonstrators. Activists then used abandoned police buses to set up barricades. In the evening, clashes broke out between riot police and about 2,000 protesters who barricaded themselves at Miasnikyan Square. At around 10 pm, President Robert Kocharyan, with the approval of the Armenian parliament, declared a 20-day state of emergency, banning future demonstrations and censoring the media from broadcasting any political news except those issued by official state press releases. Kocharian justified the decision on the grounds that a minority of demonstrators looted a nearby grocery store on Mashtots Avenue and set fire to a handful of police vehicles and buses Opposition leaders say that the looters had nothing to do with the demonstration, and that they were led by agent provocateurs. With the state of emergency in effect, at around 4:00 on 2 March, Levon Ter-Petrosyan asked the protesters near the French Embassy to go home, thus ending the protests.
The events of 1 March 2008 are simply referred to as Marti mek (Armenian: Մարտի մեկ "March First") in Armenia.