Armen Ashotyan, vice‑president of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), criticized recent arrests and said international institutions bear responsibility, having long spoken of democracy without protecting their values in a country they deeply influence, reports Pastinfo.
He argued that the EU and U.S. ambassadors are jailers over businessman Samvel Karapetyan and the clerics.
Ashotyan continued: “Does anyone doubt that if the prime minister of any EU national state—say Estonia—had told Nikol through private channels: ‘Nikol, this is wrong, free the political prisoners, you’re betraying our values’—they would have released them 100 percent? I’m sure they would.”
He added: “Even the prime minister of a small country like Estonia would have been enough to make Nikol reconsider and prevent such atrocities. This is an obvious truth; therefore the EU ambassador is, for instance, the jailer of Samvel Karapetyan and the clerics. And the U.S. ambassador is also a jailer.”
He also noted that if imprisonment—however illegal or unjust—is considered heroism, then under that logic the biggest hero is Mamikon Aslanyan, in terms of both physical scale and duration of incarceration.
Ashotyan emphasized that during his party’s governance, even when someone’s name appeared in corruption or illegal activity contexts, he was unwilling to allow that person to be deprived of the right to a fair trial.
“On that list there were you or the second president—someone served 500 days, if I recall. Serving time is not shame; it’s not heroism either; unjust imprisonment is a trial. The idea that it was meant to silence me is one version of the ‘Pashinyan aggression’ hypothesis. The second version seems more realistic: without false modesty, I can say that I was a visible person in politics, especially in opposition, with external connections. If they imprisoned me with impunity—impunity meaning international courts, sanctions, etc.—they scared everyone else with the message: if we jailed Ashotyan with his EPP, Brussels, Moscow, Beijing backing, we can jail anyone.”
Earlier it was reported that Ashotyan’s house arrest was replaced with administrative monitoring.
