Police in Armenian capital Yerevan, like in the rest of the world, are hauling youth off trains for questioning at police stations. Unlike the rest of the world their reasoning seems to be sketchy at best.
Apparently the police force has a problem with emos (who doesn’t?), going so far as the police chief saying in a recent interview that “emos are dangerous” and can “distort our gene pool”. The police think that the emo subculture is behind a recent spate of teenage suicides. But it starts sounding like a witch hunt when you consider only 13 of the 38 teenage suicide attempts across Armenia were successful and only 2 of the teens involved had any association with emo.
Eurasianet.org spoke to some students who said that they have been instructed what to do if they should come across an emo near home. “If we find out that there is an emo in the neighbourhood, we must tell our teachers” said one teenager. Police are also conducting wardrobe checks at school and looking for body piercings, black gloves, torn jeans, and any copies of My Chemical Romance’s latest album.
And even their parks aren’t safe as the police reckon these are popular gathering spots for emos and are now under close surveillance. A few weeks ago five girls and two boys we’re taken from the park to the police station on suspicion of being emo.
This all sounds strikingly like a George A. Romero film, and emos are often akin to mindless zombies. But until they start sucking out our brains perhaps we should just leave them alone. Besides they aren’t dangerous until they grow out of that phase and settle for life as bogans.
