Armenia: Officers wound 3 more gunmen holding police station

In addition to the three gunmen wounded Friday, five others were wounded in previous exchanges of fire with police.

The gunmen, who seized a cache of weapons and killed a police officer, initially held four doctors hostage but have gradually freed them.

There was a gunfight at the police building and “as a result a police officer and Pavel Manukyan and his son Aram [both members of the armed group] were wounded”.

In an earlier Facebook post, Aharonian insisted that security forces are “not conducting any operation” against the armed oppositionists.

Some protesters as well as three RFE/RL journalists-Karlen Aslanian, Hovannes Movsisian and Garik Harutiunian-were attacked and beaten up by a large group of plainclothes men armed with sticks and metal bars as they retreated towards downtown Yerevan.

The group has called on Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan to step down and the party’s founder, Zhirayr Sefilyan, to be released from prison.

The wounded police officers is placed in a ward, his condition is moderately serious.

Opposition activist Alek Yenigomshyan told TASS that the authorities have tried to persuade the protesters to change their gathering place, but to no avail.

Police have cut electricity to the station and are refusing to deliver food after the release of the last hostages.

The standoff has set off a series of anti-government demonstrations, held almost daily in the evening. One reason, according to EurasiaNet contributor Marianna Grigoryan, is the widespread wariness toward the government, seen as corrupt and neglectful of civil rights.

The European Union also called for an end to the stand-off.

The men released the four remaining police hostages over the weekend.

“The police conducted negotiates with the leaders of the gathering and repeatedly urged them to stop violent actions and leave that area … but participants of the gathering ignored the police demands”, said the statement.

The gunmen are mainly war veterans.

Thousands of people took to the streets on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in Yerevan and marched demanding the release of Zhirair Sefilian and the resignation of the president. He and six others were arrested in June and accused of preparing to take over government buildings and a television tower.