A witness has told RIA Novosti that the number of protesters is 8,000-9,000. They are armed with stones and iron rods. Trucks deliver the cobblestones to the crowd. Shooting is heard.
RIA Novosti was told in the Kyrgyz Interior Ministry that the protesters might aim at seizing authorized handguns and assault rifles in the interior department building.
Kyrgyz Interior Ministry press secretary Nurdin Dzhangarayev neither confirmed nor refuted the information, saying that if a storm took place, law enforcers would "be forced to go over to an active form of defense." The talk is about the police opening fire with blank cartridges into the air to scare away the crowd.
The press secretary said the republic's law enforcement bodies did not have plastic bullets and water jets used in the West to disperse demonstrations.
According to the press secretary, initially the rally participants tried to attack the buildings of the regional police and administration, but were pushed off by police officers.
Early on Sunday, republican OMON (special purpose police unit) took by storm the buildings of the Osh and Jalal-Abad regions, which had been seized and held for several days by supporters of the candidates who had lost in the parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan.
The rally participants demanded annulment of the elections results, as well as a change of power in the republic. The action participants elected "popular" power bodies and started establishing law and order squads of their own, including mounted detachments.
Law enforcers have observed neutrality until now, not using force in regard to the protesters.
Parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan ended on March 13. Four hundred candidates were vying for 75 seats.
