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Electric Yerevan

mirzOyan

Since June 17 Baghramyan avenue in Yerevan has become the home of the con­tinu­ous protests against the raise of elec­tri­city prices. This street which leads to the pres­id­en­tial admin­is­tra­tion build­ing is filled with people chant­ing “No to Plun­der!“
The protests began after the state util­it­ies com­mis­sion decided to increase elec­tri­city tar­iffs from the begin­ning of August by more than 16%.

The situ­ation caught inter­na­tional media atten­tion when police used water can­non against the pro­test­ers on June 23. More than 200 demon­strat­ors were arres­ted.
How­ever this only only strengthened the crowd’s determ­in­a­tion to stay put.
This round-the clock protest is now trend­ing on social media under the hashtag #ElectricYerevan.

By day, a ded­ic­ated few dozen pro­test­ers guard their tree-lined ter­rit­ory. They are in a fest­ive mood: singing, dan­cing, and chant­ing. Volun­teers dis­trib­ute water, snacks and loc­ally grown apricots. By night the singing gets louder and the crowd grows big­ger — in the thou­sands. The atmo­sphere here is elec­tri­fy­ing. Young and old, all stand together to keep the protest going until the people’s demands are met.

What make this protests really stand out is that there is no affil­i­ation to any known polit­ical or oppos­i­tion move­ment. It is strictly civil ini­ti­at­ive, and the major­ity of demon­strat­ors are teen­agers and stu­dents mobil­ized through social media.
They say It’s about rais­ing one’s head and telling the gov­ern­ment to talk to the people before mak­ing a decision, their only demand is for the gov­ern­ment to back down on its policy of a price hike.

Tags: Armenia, protests, Yerevan