18:00, 2 April 2011

Armenian intellectuals to go on hunger strike

Following Raffi Ovannisyan, leader of the "Heritage" Party, Armenian intellectuals plan to hold a hunger strike in Freedom Square in central Yerevan.

Karine Akopyan, Secretary of the Board of the "Heritage" Party, told journalists that a group of scientists and intellectuals, who had spoken in defence of Ovannisyan, decided that from April 2 on, three of them will hold hunger strike every day in Freedom Square. She treated this step as symbolic aimed at unification of the society.

The protest action of the Armenian intellectuals began at 5:00 p.m. local time. The first hunger-strikers are Larissa Alaverdyan, former ombudsperson of Armenia and now an MP from the "Heritage"; Granush Kharatyan, an ethnographer; and Professor Anait Tonoyan. "We'll stay there until we see changes for the better," said Alaverdyan.

Author: Inessa Sargsyan

Source: CK correspondent