6,000 rally in Armenian capital after police crackdown
Public anger has mounted over the government's decision to hike power prices by over 16 percent
YEREVAN (AFP) - Nearly 6,000 demonstrators rallied in the Armenian capital on Tuesday after riot police used water cannon to break up an earlier protest against electricity price hikes.
Waving national flags and chanting "Shame!" and "No to robbery!" angry protesters flooded Yerevan s central Freedom Square Tuesday evening, an AFP journalist reported from the scene.
They also demanded the release of nearly 240 people that were detained at dawn when police dispersed a protest near the presidential palace.
"We will not surrender," young protester Artak Harutyunyan told AFP.
"We will continue our peaceful struggle until the government fulfils our demands."
Public anger has mounted over the government s decision to hike power prices by over 16 percent from August 1 in the ex-Soviet country of 3.2 million, already badly hit by the economic crisis in Russia.
Some 4,000 protesters marched on the presidential palace on Monday, accusing President Serzh Sarkisian s government of failing to combat poverty in the landlocked Caucasus nation.
Several hundred of them remained on the street overnight, holding a sit-in and blocking traffic.
In the early hours of Tuesday, riot police forcefully broke up the protest, using water cannon to disperse the rally in the most serious confrontation between protesters and police in the past few years.
Most of the detained protesters had been released by Tuesday evening.
The protest has been organised through social media by a non-partisan group called "No to Robbery."
The United States embassy in Armenia said earlier Tuesday it was concerned by police violence and called for a "full and transparent investigation".
Owned by the Russian state-controlled holding Inter RAO, Armenia s power distribution company demanded the government raise electricity tariffs due to a sharp devaluation of the national currency, the dram.
Moscow s ally Armenia has been hit hard by the economic crisis in Russia brought on by falling oil prices and Western sanctions over Ukraine.
In January, the country joined the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, further increasing Yerevan s dependence on its former imperial master.
