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Armenian police detain 61 at opposition protests – reports – Metro US

Armenian police detain 61 at opposition protests – reports

Activists hold an anti-government protest in Yerevan
Activists hold an anti-government protest in Yerevan

(Reuters) -Armenian police detained 61 protesters on Tuesday as hundreds of people marched in the capital Yerevan calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, news agencies reported.

Video footage showed hundreds marching peacefully, dancing to loud music and waving tricolour Armenian flags.

Subsequent footage showed groups of officers making arrests amid violent tussles with demonstrators, in some cases wrestling unarmed men to the ground and forcefully dragging them into waiting police vans.

Pashinyan has faced heavy criticism for agreeing to a Russian-brokered ceasefire after a six-week war in 2020 when Armenia was defeated by Azerbaijan and lost significant territory in and around the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The landlocked South Caucasus country has seen a string of protests in recent weeks as pressure mounts on the embattled prime minister, with at least 92 protesters detained last Thursday.

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)