RFE/RL – Activist Charged After Altercation With Parliament Speaker

Mikael Markarian and Arsen Vardanian, a member of the little-known Pan-Armenian Front party, said they were detained for failing to comply with “the police officer’s lawful demand”, but were later released after being subjected to an administrative fine.

Armenia’s Investigative Committee later said that as part of a criminal investigation launched in connection with the incident Markarian was also charged with “committing an act of hooliganism with the use of information or communication technologies.” He was again detained later on Friday. The charge Markarian is facing carries a penalty ranging from a fine to up to five years in prison.

The incident occurred Thursday on a street adjacent to the parliament building and involved an exchange of insults between the activists and Simonian, a senior member of the ruling Civil Contract party led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.

Video from a live broadcast on Markarian’s Facebook page shows the confrontation began after Simonian declined to speak with the activist. The footage captures both sides using offensive language, with each accusing the other of initiating the verbal abuse.

The altercation took place amid a protest by relatives of soldiers missing from the 2020 war. The protesters have been calling on lawmakers to publish findings from a report on the conflict prepared in 2025 by an ad hoc parliamentary committee. The committee’s head, Andranik Kocharian, has said its public release was blocked by Simonian.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Simonian described the confrontation as a provocation organized against him by a “political unit.” He stressed that he had no dispute with relatives of soldiers killed or missing in action, denouncing attempts by “political activists” to exploit their protest.

“I know who organized it. I am sure that the closer we get to the elections, the more such cases will occur, I know where it is directed from,” Simonian said, without naming anyone.

“To come and mix with the parents and relatives of killed soldiers and pursue a political goal, to come and turn on the phone and make sexual insults to the chairman of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia… How is that possible? Am I not a citizen?” he added.

Simonian said that three “entities” could assess the incident: law-enforcement bodies, the public, and his fellow party members. He said the matter had not been discussed within Civil Contract.

Deputy Parliament Speaker Ruben Rubinian, also a member of Civil Contract, later said the incident would not be discussed at an upcoming party board meeting, adding that he saw “no need” for such discussion.

The March 26 confrontation is the latest in a series of public incidents involving Simonian.

In 2023, he ordered his bodyguards to overpower a heckler at a popular dining area in central Yerevan before spitting in the man’s face after being called a “traitor.” In 2024, Simonian again directed his bodyguards to intervene against a woman displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh who confronted him at a military cemetery in Yerevan, calling her a “garbage cat.”

In November 2025, Armenia’s National Security Service arrested two opposition activists and podcasters after the parliament speaker accused them of verbally abusing him during a podcast. The two were charged with hooliganism but they denied the accusations, saying they were responding to offensive language used by Simonian.

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