RPA vice-chairman Armen Ashotyan held an action near the European Union representation today in defense of 18-year-old Davit Minasyan, who was detained yesterday.

“Representatives of the European Union, if you have the courage to listen.

My fellow citizens. Defenders of freedom. European citizens who pay taxes to maintain this embassy, ​​I stand here today not with diplomatic courtesy, but with a burning heart.

I stand in front of this building, in front of this supposed symbol of Europe, of justice, of human dignity, and I am ashamed, not of my country, but of those who claim to be its moral “coaches” but actually bow their heads.

Behind me is a building whose windows remain closed, whose diplomats are silent, while a student sits in a prison cell for the “crime” of speaking his mind in church.

Davit Minasyan is 18 years old. He is a student. His only “crime” was being in St. Anne’s Church on Palm Sunday, surrounded by the violence of the security forces. They hit him in the face. They threw him to the ground. And who is behind the bars, not the men who hit him, but David? For a gesture. For one word.

Today he is under pre-trial detention as a common criminal. Two months. A frustrated emotion in the presence of a “prime minister” who, apparently, considers himself above the law and above God.

And where is Europe? Where are you?

You who read endless lectures about democracy. You who demand transparency, preach the rule of law, and sanctimoniously make statements about human rights in every corner of the world.

You are standing here in Yerevan, preparing for the big summit with this government in May. You will smile. You will shake hands. You will sign “partnership” papers. Drink Armenian cognac.

But I ask you. what kind of partnership is built on the bones of a child’s freedom?

Your silence is not neutrality. Your silence is complicity.

You won’t say a word about Davit Minasyan because you don’t want to embarrass the person who smiles in front of your cameras.

You will not remember about democratic standards because you need a “stable partner” for your geopolitics.

You will not criticize the persecution of the Armenian Apostolic Church, because you do not want to “interfere in internal affairs”.

But let me tell you what goes on inside those inner workings. the rule of law is dying. Courts are a rubber stamp. The prime minister’s security forces beat teenagers in churches and the teens go to jail. Meanwhile, those loyal to the regime can spit on citizens with impunity.

This is not a democracy. This is a dictatorship with a European facade.

And you, you, the European Union, help paint that facade.

You sit in your embassies. You write your reports. You use the words “concern”, “reforms”, “encouraging steps”, “Hybrid war”. But where is your outrage? Where is your moral clarity?

If you can’t protect an 18-year-old student in church, what are you protecting?

If you remain silent when the Armenian people are deprived of their fundamental freedoms, what do your agreements mean?

If you accept a government that imprisons its critics, pretending to build a “European future”, then you are not building Europe, you are burying its values ​​in Armenian soil.

Let me be clear. I am a patriot. I want a European modus vivendi and modus operandi for Armenia.

I want our people to enjoy the freedoms that Europeans take for granted. But I am here and I will not allow you to use the dream of Europe as a shield for dictatorship.

You cannot lecture us about democracy while you shake hands with a regime that imprisons children.

You cannot demand judicial reforms, while you ignore the judge who signed Davit Minasyan’s arrest decision without evidence.

You cannot call yourselves defenders of human rights, while you remain silent, because the Armenian Apostolic Church, the soul of our nation, is being persecuted.

Shame on you.

Shame on your silence. Shame on your hypocrisy. Shame on the diplomats who look out their windows, who see me here, who know the truth and do nothing.

Davit Minasyan should be released. Today. Not tomorrow. Not after the summit. Now.

And until you find your voice, until you stop being promoters of authoritarianism, you don’t deserve to call this place the “Delegation of the European Union”. You do not deserve the trust of the Armenian people and European citizens.

We will not be silent. We will not bow down. We will continue to fight for our freedoms, with or without you.

But history will remember who stood by the oppressed and who looked away.

Release Davit Minasyan. Release all political prisoners.

And officials of the European Union. either live up to your values ​​or stop pretending you have them.

I am leaving here the school bag, which could have belonged to Davit Minasyan, as a blatant reminder of your hypocrisy,” said Armen Ashotyan during the campaign.

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