Vahe Hakobyan, former MP from the Hayastan alliance and current head of the Reviving Armenia party, has published an open letter addressed to the European Union.
In his message, Hakobyan claims that the EU condemns repression when it serves its interests, but turns a blind eye when its partners are responsible. “That’s not neutrality, it’s hypocrisy,” he wrote.
He adds that the silence of the international community has become a political tool for covering up oppression. “This silence gives Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s regime a sense of total impunity. It transforms into consent, participation, and approval,” he wrote.
“While you, the international community, keep speaking about values, in Armenia archbishops, benefactors, journalists, opposition figures, lawyers, and peaceful citizens are being persecuted, pressured, arrested, or detained,” Hakobyan wrote, pointing out that Armenian clerics, including bishops and archbishops Bagrat, Mikael, and Mkrtich, have been arrested, “a precedent not seen even in the darkest years of our history.”
He claims that the government operates without constraint from legal mechanisms, so political imprisonment now affects elected mayors like Mamikon Aslanyan, Davit Hambardzumyan, and Vardan Ghukasyan, as well as MPs such as Artur Sargsyan and Levon Kocharyan. Other opposition lawmakers are swiftly stripped of immunity and imprisoned. Fabricated charges, prolonged trials, and harsh punishments are all part of the process.
“The only criterion for ending up behind bars is dissent—criticizing the government or disagreeing with its policies,” Hakobyan states.
According to him, freedom of speech has been annihilated, the Church is under pressure, and the justice system has been reduced to a tool for political revenge. The regime, he says, is rapidly transitioning into outright authoritarianism or dictatorship.
“Everything is already clear with Nikol Pashinyan,” he adds. “He behaves like any leader who has lost legitimacy. But the silence of the international community is far more dangerous than his actions.”
Hakobyan directly accuses European countries and their ambassadors in Armenia of applying double standards: condemning pressure where it benefits them while ignoring abuses committed by their allies. “Before 2018, you responded to the slightest pressure on free speech. Today, as Armenian archbishops are imprisoned, criminal cases fabricated, and dissenters persecuted daily, you choose silence,” he charges.
He criticizes EU-funded alternative pretrial mechanisms being ignored in Armenia: “This is not neutrality. This is hypocrisy.”
He holds the European community accountable for the imprisonment of people over their opinions, attacks on the Church, suppression of protests, destruction of independent institutions, and the normalization of politically motivated prosecutions.
“Your silence is part of this system. Your handshakes serve to legitimize it. You are destroying your own credibility,” Hakobyan warns. “In Armenia, people are now asking: why does Europe vanish when everything it claims to stand for is being violated?”
“When you stay silent about repression, you lose your moral right to speak about democracy. You lose the trust of a people who have always chosen freedom. And you are creating this collapse with your own hands.”
“Speak honestly about reality. If you support Pashinyan, say clearly you back a repressive regime. If not, explain why you cover his actions in diplomatic terms. Because today, silence equals participation, ambiguity equals endorsement, and hypocrisy equals betraying your own principles. The Armenian people see it and remember it,” he concluded.
Hakobyan is currently wanted by authorities. According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, he was declared wanted on October 31, 2025, as part of a criminal case under Article 277 (abuse of official authority or influence in the private sector) and Article 296 (money laundering), Sections 2.2 and 3 respectively.
