Ani Kirakosyan is 22. She will not let us take her photograph, because she is afraid. By her accounts of what happened to her during a police crack down on Armenia’s political oppositional, her fear is justified.

Ani got a degree in journalism at Yerevan Pedagogic Institute and after graduation was offered a job collecting information for the online magazine of the Republican party.

On the evening of April 13, Ani was in the headquarters of the party. It is oppositional leader Aram Sargsyan’s office, but Ani is not a member of the party and says she is apolitical. For her, the work is a job, not a passion.

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An attack on a prominent oppositional figure on Thursday has sparked outrage by anti-government sympathizers who see the act as a premeditated order by authorities.

Ashot Manucharyan, who in the late 1980s was a member of the “Karabakh Committee” and later was Minister of Interior and then National Security Advisor during the first term of President Levon Ter Petrosyan was severely beaten while walking on Tumanyan Street in Yerevan in mid-afternoon.

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At least 40 cattle have died in the village of Aygabats (about 128 kilometers north of Yerevan). Anushavan Aghajanyan, head of State Veterinary Inspection at the Ministry of Agriculture visited the Shirak region village and said the preliminary cause of death is anthrax.

Village head Gagik Altunyan blames the deaths on defective vaccinations for the disease, administered April 15.

Ministry of Agriculture officials have not confirmed Altunyan’s suspicions, while awaiting test results from samples sent to Moscow.

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