RFE/RL – Karabakh Activist Remanded In Custody After Row With Pashinian

Pashinian was approached by Artur Osipinian as he campaigned in the city’s northern Arabkir district for the June 7 parliamentary elections. Osipian asked him questions and criticized his policies on Karabakh, sparking a furious reaction from him.

Moments after his supporters and bodyguards dragged away Osipian, Pashinian picked up a megaphone and rushed towards the Karabakh Armenian man, shouting insults and threats also addressed to “Karabakh pseudo-elites.”

“You should have died when there was the Karabakh issue. Why are you alive at all, you scumbag?” cried the premier.

Osipian, who publicly campaigned against Karabakh’s last leadership before the region’s recapture by Azerbaijan, was arrested and indicted following the incident. Armenia’s Investigative Committee claimed that he disrupted public order and obstructed the ruling Civil Contract’s election campaign. It also charged him with calling for a violent attack on Pashinian in a social media post in March.

In a joint statement issued on Wednesday, more than a dozen Western-funded civic organizations rejected the accusations as “illegal, baseless and politically motivated” and demanded Osipinian’s immediate release. They insisted that he simply exercised his freedom of speech and never advocated violence.

The court ignored the appeal, allowing investigators to hold Osipian in pretrial custody for the next two months.

During his campaign tour of Arabkir, Pashinian also lost his temper after being confronted by several other disgruntled citizens. They inccluded Arpine Soghoyan, a gynecologist whose brother, senior military medic Hrant Papikian, went missing during the 2020 war in Karabakh. Soghoyan blamed Pashinian for her loss and accused him of having “stolen my fatherland.”

Pashinian responded by linking the middle-aged woman to the leaders of Armenia’s three main opposition groups and pledging to “take out” them. His outbursts drew strong condemnation from the opposition.

Aram Vartevanian, a senior representative of billionaire Samvel Karapetian’s Strong Armenia bloc, on Thursday petitioned Prosecutor-General Anna Vartapetian to order criminal proceedings against Pashinian. Vartapetian’s office told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that it has forwarded the demand to the Investigative Committee. It made clear earlier that the prosecutors will not investigate the legality of what critics see as death threats voiced by Pashinian.

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