Opposition Activists Rounded Up In Armenia

· June 17, 2024

• Naira Bulghadarian

RFE/RL Armenian Service

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), a major opposition party involved in ongoing antigovernment protests, said on Friday that security forces raided its offices in the southeastern Vayots Dzor province and detained a dozen local activists.

Dashnaktsutyun’s governing body in Armenia said they were rounded up early in the morning for allegedly paying people to participate in the protests in Yerevan led by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanian. It rejected the “completely false and despicable” accusations and condemned the arrests as a “large-scale attack” on the pan-Armenian party.

The head of the body, Ishkhan Saghatelian, told reporters that the accusations are based on the audio of wiretapped phone conversations posted on the website of a media outlet controlled by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party. He insisted that the “illegal” recordings do not prove anything even if it turns out that they were not rigged or doctored by the authorities.

“We are prepared for any scenario,” Saghatelian said, adding that his party will continue to fight for the ouster of Pashinian’s “pro-Turkish regime.”

According to Gegham Manukian, a parliament deputy from Dashnaktsutyun, law-enforcement officers searched the party’s offices in the provincial towns of Yeghegnadzor and Vayk, confiscating their computers.

Speaking to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service from Yeghegnadzor, Manukian said that he and another Dashnaktsutyun lawmaker are trying in vain to visit the detainees and receive an official explanation of their arrests from the Vayots Dzor division of Armenia’s Investigative Committee.

The law-enforcement agency said later in the day that it will not comment for now “in the interests of the investigation.”

A key member of the main opposition Hayastan alliance, Dashnaktsutyun has been at the forefront of Archbishop Galstanian’s demonstrations aimed at forcing Pashinian to resign. Riot police allegedly tried to enter the party’s Yerevan headquarters during one of the protests staged on May 27.

Several policemen were caught on camera punching, kicking and swearing at another lawmaker representing Dashnaktsutyun, Ashot Simonian, outside the headquarters. One of them was suspended as a result. But neither he nor any other officer was prosecuted for the violent conduct.