The 2011 Armenian protests were a series of civil demonstrations aimed at provoking political reforms and concessions from both the government of Armenia and the civic government of Yerevan, its capital and largest city. Protesters demanded President Serzh Sargsyan release political prisoners, prosecute those responsible for the deaths of opposition activists after the 2008 presidential election and institute democratic and socioeconomic reforms, including the right to organise in Freedom Square in downtown Yerevan. They also protested against Yerevan Mayor Karen Karapetyan for banning the opposition from Freedom Square and barring vendors and traders from the city streets. The opposition bloc Armenian National Congress, which has played a major role in organising and leading the demonstrations, had also called for a snap election and the resignation of the government.
The government granted several concessions to the protesters, including agreeing to the opposition's terms for an inquiry into the 2008 protest deaths, granting them a permit to rally in Freedom Square, and releasing several imprisoned opposition activists.
Timeline of protests Street vendor protests Street vendors in Yerevan, angry over Mayor Karapetyan's decision on 13 January to start enforcing a strict ban on street trading, protested outside the municipal offices of the capital city on 19 January. City officials insisted the ban was necessary for public health and safety, but demonstrators shouted slogans criticizing Karapetyan, a Republican Party of Armenia official elected by the municipal assembly in December 2010 to finish out an incomplete term, and complaining that the municipality's ban has prevented many of them from making enough money to pay for food and shelter for themselves and their families. Some protesters, many of whose signs emphasized their peaceful intentions, called upon Karapetyan to either meet with them or resign. The protests in front of the municipal offices soon became a daily phenomenon stretching into February.
Political protests With minor protests in Yerevan continuing and a revolutionary wave spreading throughout North Africa and Western Asia, opposition politicians like Stepan Safaryan of the Heritage party and former President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who was defeated by now-President Sargsyan in the disputed 2008 election, of the Armenian National Congress (HAK) suggested in early February that political upheaval could come to Armenia. Ter-Petrosyan called for an opposition rally in Yerevan's Freedom Square on 18 February not just to protest the Karapetyan administration, but to protest the government of President Serzh Sargsyan. The government responded by saying Liberty Square would be off-limits due to "sports and cultural events". The HAK said it planned to rally in the square regardless of whether the city government and the national government allowed it to do so. Political analysts said national opposition leaders like Ter-Petrosyan were harnessing an existing wave of unrest inspired by the Tunisian Revolution and protests in Egypt and evident in such events as the ongoing street vendor protests, with some predicting that the conditions were right for major protests to gain traction.
18 February On 18 February, the Armenian National Congress held a major protest drawing between 5,000 and 10,000 in the city center of Yerevan. The protesters, including Ter-Petrosyan, complained of low wages, unemployment, inflation, corruption, and a falling quality of living. Speakers at the rally also invoked the specter of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, and Ter-Petrosyan compared the Sargsyan administration to those fallen regimes. "The plight of our people is no better than the plight of the peoples of those countries, and Armenia's regime is no less dictatorial and hated than the regimes in those countries," the former president said. He urged the government to resign and called for an uprising similar to those seen in Arab countries near Armenia. Ter-Petrosyan also called on street vendors and others already organizing in protest of government policies to "politicize" their rallies and join with the national opposition in calling for sweeping changes.
1 March The Armenian National Congress organized another rally in Yerevan on 1 March. According to estimates of the opposition, the rally was attended by over 50,000 citizens. The rally marked the third anniversary of post-election violence after Sargsyan's disputed victory in 2008, when 10 protesters were killed. Protesters again demanded early elections and called for Sargsyan to resign. Ter-Petrosyan spoke at the rally, calling the government a "bandit regime [that] seized power through falsified parliamentary and presidential elections and the bloody crime committed on 1 March 2008" and reiterating the demands aired at the 18 February protest. He also publicly called for the ban on street trading to be lifted and demanded economic reforms, including a higher minimum wage and unemployment benefits.
3 March About 50 street vendors backed by members of both the opposition party Heritage and the Armenian National Congress, including members of parliament, gathered outside a government building in Yerevan. Police moved to disperse them, resulting in a number of clashes. One HAK activist was arrested and one of the Heritage MPs was hospitalized with injuries. In defiance of a statement from Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan promising an internal investigation into the allegations of police brutality, the police publicly blamed the MPs for inciting violence. The incident prompted renewed comparisons of the Karapetyan and Sargsyan administrations' policies to pre-revolutionary Tunisia by some analysts and opposition parliamentarians.
15 March – "Fast for Freedom"
Armenian Minister of Parliament and Former Foreign Minister Raffi Hovannisian, a leader of Heritage, began a hunger strike in Freedom Square on 15 March to protest the government and advocate for snap elections.
17 March On 17 March, protesters continued to demand the resignations of the government, many members of which were elected in the disputed elections, in the evening at Freedom Square citing a will to replicate the Arab world protests. Ter-Petrosyan, again a featured speaker at the rally, said that the demonstrations were "peaceful" in intent. As many as 20,000 Armenians attended the rally, though the government said 9,000 attended and organizers claimed a turnout of 100,000. Hovannisian, now on the second day of his hunger strike, was present in Freedom Square with his supporters but was sidelined by Ter-Petrosyan and other Armenian National Congress leaders, straining relations between Heritage and the HAK.
Before the rally, opposition activist Samson Khachatrian was arrested after two plainclothes police officers alleged he assaulted them at the 1 March rally, a move one HAK leader called "a provocation". Khachatrian was later convicted of the assault, spurring mass outcry from the opposition.
30 March In a ceremony at Freedom Square, Hovannisian ended his public hunger strike by eating a hunk of bread symbolically blessed by an Armenian Orthodox priest. He said health concerns, including warnings from his doctor, as well as the arrival of his daughter's 18th birthday prompted him to call off the 15-day hunger strike, but he claimed the strike had affected "the public consciousness" even if it had not moved authorities to change their "consciousness and policies". Hovannisian also acknowledged cracks in the opposition to Sargsyan and the government, but he did not specifically acknowledge the simmering dispute between Heritage and the Armenian National Congress. A Republican Party of Armenia MP criticized the hunger strike, saying it was not the best means of enacting change.
2–4 April Several female intellectuals, including a Heritage MP, held a sit-in each day in Freedom Square starting on 2 April as a "logical continuation" of Hovannisian's protest action the month before. During the sit-in, attended by a handful of women each day, protesters sat silently for five hours before departing the square. Some critics within the opposition decried the sit-in as a gimmick, with one calling it a "waste of time".
8 April On 8 April, Ter-Petrosyan gave a 35-minute speech in Yerevan. The rally, organized by the Armenian National Congress, drew 12,000 attendees to Freedom Square in the city center in violation of an official ban. Despite the ban by the Yerevan city council, police ultimately stood aside in the face of the crowd and permitted the gathering. Ter-Petrosyan said that the Sargsyan administration must fulfill three demands by 28 April: promising an "objective inquiry" into post-election violence in 2008, giving the HAK the permanent legal right to demonstrate in Yerevan's Freedom Square, and securing the release of political prisoners. The former president also warned the opposition would "drastically change" its methods of resistance unless its demands were met.
At a press conference several days after the rally, Armenian National Congress official Levon Zurabian warned that the opposition saw the political situation as "a war, a real war". Zurabian added, "And if we want to achieve something in that war, we must and we will get ready for war." He suggested that mass striking, sit-ins, large-scale marches, and other acts of civil disobedience could be the next step for the opposition. Zurabian also claimed that, contrary to suggestions from leaders in allied parties that the opposition is ready to negotiate a deal that keeps the Sargsyan administration in power, the goal of the HAK remains forcing Sargsyan to resign and a snap election to be held.
28 April Two days before the planned rally in Freedom Square on 28 April, the municipality of Yerevan reversed its earlier decision not to grant permits to HAK to gather in the square. The mayor's office agreed to a planned route that included a demonstration in Freedom Square, issuing a permit for the first time in over two years for the gathering. The government also said the ban on demonstrations in the square would be lifted from 28 April forward.
Reuters reported a turnout of about 5,000 at the rally. Ter-Petrosyan referred to the government's announcement of concessions on access to Freedom Square and the investigation into the 2008 post-election violence and told the crowd, "If the door to dialogue is not yet open, it is half open." For the first time since protests began in January and February, he suggested that the grievances of demonstrators could be addressed through negotiation rather than regime change. Ter-Petrosyan also called on President Sargsyan to release jailed political dissidents and activists in time for the next planned rally on 31 May.
A significant number of protesters reportedly did not take part in a march through Yerevan following Ter-Petrosyan's speech, with some continuing to occupy the square afterward rather than leave, and the former president elicited some boos, whistles, and jeers when he expressed confidence that the government would release all political prisoners within weeks. Although HAK official Levon Zurabian said the party remains intent on forcing snap elections, Ter-Petrosyan did not mention the resignation of the government or new elections once throughout the speech.
21 May Raffi Hovannisian, the leader of Heritage, held an assembly in the Government Hall of Sessions in Yerevan reportedly attended by hundreds of citizens, including several fellow political figures and famous activists. Three panel discussions comprised the bulk of the town hall meeting, with topics of human rights, civics, and solutions to political differences featured respectively. Hovannisian set 4 June as the next date for an assembly, to be held in the more public setting of Freedom Square.
31 May