In a telegram message, NA Speaker Alen Simonyan referred to the March 1 crime.
“Early on March 1, 2008, Gevorg Altunyan called me and said the people were dispersed. I quickly got dressed and went to the intersection of Mashtots-Tumanyan streets.
I stood on the sidewalk of the Stepan Shahumyan school and watched what was happening on the opposite sidewalk. I did not believe that I would witness such a thing. How, in the center of Yerevan, the helmeted Armenian guys are brazenly attacking and beating Armenian people with particular brutality. Maybe it’s not so unusual in this cruel world now, but for me, my 28-year-old son, it was a horror; I couldn’t believe that such a thing was possible. Then Mariam came, and we were in the streets all day. Gevorg and I tried to put out a burning Willy car near the Sundukyan theater, and then Nikol came (I didn’t know him personally at the time). We met the luminary Vigen Khachatryan (Vigen Surenich), and he was by my side the whole night; he wouldn’t let us walk past the statue of Myasnikyan together. We were up and still couldn’t believe that shots were being fired in the sky in the background of the Yerevan Municipality.
Then, Armenians killed Armenians; 10 people died, and many people were injured. All that is for the government to keep its “seat.” Blood, death, and lives of Armenian people to preserve the “chair.”
That day, I decided that I would leave Armenia once and for all, or I would do everything so that something like this never happens again.”
