The Armenian Community of Toronto has reached what it called “a historic turning point” announcing the acquisition of a new move-in-ready institutional facility for $15.05 million (Canadian).

In a statement published on social media the Armenian Community Centre of Toronto Board of Directors said that the “acquisition stands as the largest financial investment in the history of the Toronto-Armenian community. It represents a decisive commitment to long-term stability, providing the infrastructure necessary to ensure the future of our growing community.”

“This facility will also house the Grades 7–12 students of A.R.S. Armenian Private School, thereby unlocking essential capacity within our existing buildings to expand our Kindergarten and Elementary programs. This strategic realignment addresses years of enrollment limitations and ensures that every child seeking a trilingual education has a place to grow and thrive,” the announcement explained.

“This milestone marks a new era of academic excellence and cultural preservation. By securing this state-of-the-art facility, the community is ensuring a stable, thriving, and sustainable future for Armenian-Canadians for generations to come,” the ACC Board said.

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Apollo Strategic Communications Circulated Covert Media Hit Piece Against ANCA; Firm Deactivates X Account, Scrubs Staff Page after Leak

WASHINGTON – The Armenian National Committee of America is demanding full transparency from Apollo Strategic Communications, a London-based public relations firm with documented ties to Azerbaijan and its Caspian energy partners, after the firm was exposed for secretly circulating a media advisory to U.S. journalists targeting the ANCA for its advocacy on behalf of Americans of Armenian heritage.

The March 2, 2026, email, sent by Apollo’s Daniel Blake-Martin and leaked by a number of news agencies that received it, invited American editors to write hit pieces against the ANCA, recycling false arguments regularly advanced by Azerbaijani and Turkish government interests against pro-Armenia advocates in Washington.

The firm’s memo offered American journalists access to four off-the-record sources – including an unnamed congressional staffer, an Armenian ruling-party lawmaker, as well as figures from academic and think-tank circles, to place stories damaging to the ANCA.

The firm’s memo offered American journalists access to four off-the-record sources – including an unnamed congressional staffer, an Armenian ruling-party lawmaker, and figures from academic and think-tank circles – to place stories damaging to the ANCA.

ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian described it as “a scripted hit-piece against the ANCA sent in stealth to American journalists — a blueprint for slander, enlisting the anonymous backing of Armenians from Garo Paylan to Maria Karapetyan, MP — to punish the ANCA, not for our vices but for our virtues,” in a published op-ed responding to the campaign. “Assaulted for standing foursquare for the security of Armenia, the return of Armenians to Artsakh, the end of Azerbaijani occupation, the protection of Christian holy sites, and — perhaps most ‘unforgivable’ of all for Baku and its BP patrons — accountability for Azerbaijan’s crimes against the Armenian people.”

One of those sources, Garo Paylan, has since publicly disavowed the campaign on X, writing that “messages were sent to journalists on my behalf regarding Armenia that I did not authorize.” Since the leak, Apollo deactivated its X account and removed Blake-Martin from its website.

The ANCA is pressing Apollo for answers to four key questions: Who hired Apollo to pitch hit pieces against the ANCA, and how much were they paid? If Apollo acted on behalf of a foreign principal in America, against an American organization, why has it not registered with the Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)? How and why did Apollo enlist Maria Karapetyan, Nzhdeh Hovsepyan, and Garo Paylan in this covert campaign? And what connections does Apollo’s parent company, RSK Group, have to Azerbaijan, the Aliyev family, and Caspian energy companies?

California Courier publisher and columnist Harut Sassounian, whose weekly column scrutinized the Apollo memo in detail, raised the prospect that the operation may constitute a FARA violation. “The ASC memo was sent to the American media by a UK, not U.S., PR firm, possibly intending to circumvent” federal foreign lobbying disclosure requirements, Sassounian wrote — adding that Apollo failed to respond to multiple requests for comment, “resulting in a PR firm doing negative PR against itself.”

As Sassounian reported in the California Courier, RSK Group, Apollo’s parent company, maintains a wholly owned subsidiary — Azerbaijan Environment and Technology Centre Ltd. — with an in-country office and active project work in the Caspian region. Apollo itself has operated under multiple names since its registration in 2009, previously known as “Red Public Relations Limited” and “Apollo Public Relations Limited.”

“The ANCA publicly shares our work — enlisting our community via open calls to activism, press releases, and national townhall meetings,” Hamparian wrote. “Apollo’s involvement, by contrast, would have remained entirely unknown had their emails not been leaked. All that remains is for Apollo now to reveal who exactly is paying for this anti-ANCA defamation — the terms of any contracts, and the dollar amounts involved.”

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Voters wait to cast their ballots during the 2021 snap parliamentary elections

Armenia’s Foreign Intelligence Service on Tuesday issued a cryptic statement that warned of threats of foreign interference in the upcoming June 7 election.

The intelligence agency issued the announcement to the state-run Armepress news agency, saying that “various actors” are attempting to interfere in the elections, without specifying the said “actors.” The statement alleged that the so-called “actors” are using pressure on Armenians abroad to support certain political parties in Armenia.

“The Foreign Intelligence Service receives intelligence that, in a foreign country, various actors—presenting themselves as representatives of that country’s special services—are attempting to exert pressure on individuals of Armenian origin and the citizens of the Republic of Armenia who are engaged in economic activities in that country, in order to induce them to undertake actions supporting certain political forces that have declared their intention to participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections in Armenia. These actions include, but are not limited to, the provision by the said businesspersons of financial and organizational support to those political forces,” the Foreign Intelligence Service said.

A few hours after the statement was issued, the Interior Ministry said that the Armenian police have already looked into the FIS statement and submitted a relevant “report of an apparent crime” to Armenia’s Investigative Committee.

Vahakn Aleksanyan, the Vice-President of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract Party, took to social media later Tuesday to hint that the country in question in the FIS report was Russia, which allegedly had elaborate plans to interfere in the elections, including ordering Armenians living abroad to travel to Armenia to vote in the polls.

During a campaign rally in Gyumri over the weekend, Pashinyan also mentioned rumors that “they will be bringing people from Russia” to vote for the opposition.

“Let them bring [such people] because 84.5 percent of those who will come, according to the polls we have conducted there, will vote for us,” Pashinyan said.

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U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Report, 2026

Also Cites Pashinyan’s Attack on Armenian Apostolic Church

For their ongoing disregard for religious freedom and persecuting religious minorities in 2025, Azerbaijan and Turkey were among 11 countries placed on a “Special Watch List” by the United State Commission on International Religious Freedom, which issued its annual report this week.

Among the issues cited by the USCIRF 2026 report was the destruction of Armenian religious and cultural heritage in Artsakh.

“Historic Armenian religious sites in Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding territories remain at risk following Azerbaijan’s retaking of the territories in 2020 and 2023. As of July, satellite imagery identified eight destroyed and another 10 damaged religious sites, including churches, cemeteries, and other artifacts. Additionally, family members have reported that Armenian prisoners are prevented from receiving religious items, such as the Bible; however, the Azerbaijani government has claimed prisoners have access to religious materials,” the report cited.

The report also recommended that the U.S. “set conditions on foreign military financing and other security assistance to Azerbaijan, requiring specified improvements in religious freedom and related human rights.”

The report cited Congressional action regarding religious and human rights violations in 2025, citing various initiatives that were led or backed by the Armenian National Committee of America.

“Congress elevated human rights concerns in Azerbaijan throughout the year, including related to religious freedom. In March, 60 bipartisan members of Congress urged U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to enforce prohibitions on U.S. military assistance to Azerbaijan under Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act in part due to Azerbaijan’s destruction of Armenian religious heritage in the Nagorno-Karabakh region,” the commission reported.

“In April, Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) led a Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearing on human rights in Azerbaijan following its hosting of the United Nations’ annual climate conference. In July, more than 80 bipartisan members of Congress urged Secretary Rubio to ensure the safe return of Armenians displaced during Azerbaijan’s 2023 military campaign in Nagorno-Karabakh. The letter mentioned Azerbaijan’s destruction of Armenian religious sites in the region,” the report added.

“In September, Representatives Dina Titus (D-NV) and Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) reintroduced the Azerbaijan Sanctions Review Act (H.R. 5369), which, if passed, would require the Trump administration to determine whether Azerbaijani officials mentioned in the bill participated in human rights abuses and qualified for sanctions under relevant U.S. law,” the report said.

Despite an apparent consensus on classifying Azerbaijan on a “Special Watch List,” the chair of the commission, Vicky Hartzler voiced her dissent in the report and called for Azerbaijan to be placed on the harsher—more strict—“Country of Particular Concern” category.

“Azerbaijan should be designated a Country of Particular Concern rather than Special Watch List due to its ongoing, egregious, and severe violations of religious freedom,” Hartzler in her dissent included in the report.

“The country outwardly claims to support religious freedom, yet inwardly does the opposite. It tortures its citizens, controls religious activity, expels independent media and the Red Cross, and destroys religious heritage sites. Control of religion involves government approval for the publication and distribution of religious materials, requirements on the registration of churches, appointments by the government of imams to mosques, and government writing of sermons for Muslim services. Shi’a religious actors imprisoned for their faith have been subjected to beatings, threats of rape, and detention in horrid conditions,” the commission chair explained.

“The nearly two dozen Armenian Christian prisoners from Nagorno-Karabakh, who were tried behind closed doors without adequate legal counsel, have received beatings, psychological abuse, lack of access to medical care and proper food, denials of Bibles, and the erasure of cross tattoos through burning. Police are not held accountable for these actions. In addition, Azerbaijan continues to destroy religious monuments and churches in Nagorno-Karabakh, erasing over 2,000 years of Christian presence in that area. Satellite imagery has identified eight destroyed and another 10 damaged religious sites as of July, including churches, cemeteries, and other artifacts. Azerbaijan’s treatment of religion and its people needs to change. If Azerbaijan wants to be a full partner with the United States and advance shared economic and strategic goals, it needs to take meaningful steps to truly embrace religious freedom,” Hartzler emphasized in her dissent.

The USCIRF also mentioned Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan campaign and crusade against the church under a section called “Attacks on and Repression of Religious Leaders.”

“In Armenia, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s statements about the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC) raised concerns about potential government interference in the AAC’s religious autonomy. Throughout 2025, Prime Minister Pashinyan proposed establishing and personally appointing a council to elect a new AAC leader, and elevated clergy who aligned with his agenda to oust the current catholicos. Pashinyan’s attacks on Catholicos Karekin II coincided with the arrest of AAC clerics and other lay members who had criticized or expressed political opposition to Pashinyan’s government,” the report said.

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