According to Associated Press reports published in the Boston Globe,
Sunday, October 18, 3,000 Armenians demonstrated Saturday, October
17 in Yerevan demanding the authorities to close a chemical plant
and the Metzamor nuclear power station because of their polluting
effects on the environment.
The following day, Sunday, October 18, as reported in the Boston
Globe of Monday, October 19, 1,000 Armenians participated in another
demonstration calling for Armenian national rights in Karabagh.
According to Moscow-based sources, the Globe said, police tried
to prevent the Saturday protest but took no action to stop it once
the march was underway. Sergei Grigoryants, the editor of the Moscow-based
Glasnost magazine, said he obtained his information from a telephone
call from Soviet Armenia.
According to Grigoryants, the Globe said, the Sunday demonstration
was interrupted by-police officers who, swinging nightsticks and
breaking placards which bore Gorbachev's picture, dispersed the
demonstrators.
News sources told Asbarez [the L.A. Armenian daily] that the Saturday
demonstrators against the environmental danger were led by Armenian
writers such as Silva Kaputikian, Zori Balayan and Maro Margarian
and leaders from the National Survival organization. The march originated
at the Opera Plaza after speakers, mainly intellectuals, addressed
the crowd.
The Sunday demonstration began across from the "Marshal Bagramian"
metro stop. The
demonstrators demanded the annexation of Nakhichevan and Mountainous
Karabagh to Armenia, and carried placards to that effect. The police
tried to physically prevent the march and after a few incidents,
dispersed the demonstrators.
The same day, it was reported that clashes took place between
Armenian and Tatar villagers in Chardakhlu, in the Karabagh region
of Azerbaijan.
[ Asbarez, October 24,1987]
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