Arpine Soghoyan, a doctor who had a heated exchange with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan over Nagorno-Karabakh before the June elections, has been dismissed from her job. While authorities claimed her dismissal was part of staff layoffs, Soghoyan has alleged it was politically motivated and vowed to appeal the decision.

The incident took place in late May, when Pashinyan became involved in several heated exchanges with members of the public while campaigning. He later claimed the arguments were part of an organised attempt by the opposition to provoke him.

At the time, Soghoyan, an obstetrician-gynaecologist, accused Pashinyan of ‘stealing [her] homeland’ and ‘destroying an entire generation’, referring to the victims of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and subsequent escalations.

Soghoyan’s brother, Lieutenant Colonel Hrant Papikyan, went missing during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Shortly after the incident, reports emerged that the head of her clinic in Yerevan had asked her to submit a resignation letter, though her daughter, Tatevik Soghoyan, said no resignation had been submitted.

In turn, Yerevan Mayor Tigran Avinyan ruled out at the time ‘that any person would be fired for their political views’.

Despite Avinyan’s assurances, Soghoyan was dismissed roughly two months after the exchange.

The news was first shared on Monday by Tatevik Soghoyan, who said that after ‘21 years of impeccable service’, her mother had been dismissed ‘on the grounds of staff cuts’.

‘In other words, the polyclinic will continue to have a women’s consultation department, but it will no longer have a head of department. Thousands of women from an entire administrative district [of Yerevan], including expectant mothers, will be left without the oversight of a highly experienced department head’, Tatevik Soghoyan wrote in a Facebook post.

She described the official explanation — a lack of funding — as ‘ridiculous when compared with the billions of drams the municipality spends on lavish festivities’, without elaborating which events she was implying.

Adding that her mother’s spirit was high and her employment prospects were good, she called the dismissal ‘yet another vivid example of the “bastion of democracy” that [claims] to protect our freedom of speech’.

In its comment to the media, the Yerevan Municipality stated that staffing cuts had been introduced across healthcare institutions under its authority following the introduction of mandatory health insurance on 1 January 2026.

‘The retention of additional positions creates an extra financial burden, including the position of “head of department” ’, the municipality said.

Speaking to RFE/RL, Soghoyan rejected the explanation, claiming it was illogical and vowed to challenge her dismissal in court.

According to RFE/RL, the dismissal notice stated that Soghoyan ‘could not be offered another position because of her health condition’. Soghoyan, however, said she had no health problems and had never missed work because of illness. She also questioned why staff positions were being cut when the number of patients had not decreased, arguing that the introduction of mandatory health insurance had, if anything, increased doctors’ workloads.

‘Following Soghoyan’s dismissal, just three doctors will be responsible for providing care to more than 10,000 women’, RFE/RL reported.

A series of similar dismissals

Soghoyan’s dismissal comes amid a series of claims by public-sector employees that they have faced politically motivated retaliation following the June elections.

Days after the elections, Gohar Vardanyan, a local civil official in the border village of Kirants, said she was pressured to submit a resignation letter after publishing a Facebook post disputing claims that the strong showing of Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party in the village actually reflected real local support.

Shortly afterwards, Edgar Ghazaryan, a parliamentary candidate from Strong Armenia, accused the authorities of targeting his family by dismissing his sister, Lilit Ghazaryan, from the state-run Drug Expertise Centre, where she had worked for more than 30 years.

According to Ghazaryan, the day after the election, his sister ‘was instructed’ by the Health Ministry to resign, and after refusing to do so, ‘she was unlawfully dismissed’. Management instead abolished one of the centre’s two deputy director positions, effectively dismissing her.

Speaking at a press briefing following the dismissal, Health Minister Anahit Avanesyan rejected the allegations, insisting that the decision had no political motivation and saying the accusations were ‘manipulations’.

Similar allegations have also emerged from Yerevan State University (YSU).

Earlier in July, lawyer Ruben Melikyan, who had taught at the university’s Faculty of Law for over 20 years, said he had been notified that his contract would not be renewed, which effectively stops him from teaching from September.

Melikyan, who represents opposition figures and is a vocal critic of the authorities, said he believed the decision was politically motivated.

He also told RFE/RL that two other lecturers with opposition views — Shushan Vardanyan and Alen Ghrevondyan — had been informed that their contracts would not be renewed.

Earlier, the YSU decided to dissolve its Department of Foreign Literature, headed by Anush Sedrakyan, which claimed that her opposition stance had contributed to the department’s closure, while the university denied that the decision was politically motivated.