Statement: What is happening around the "Strong Armenia" candidate for mayor of Stepanavan is a classic example of political persecution.

ArmInfo. The situation surrounding Arsen Gevorgyan, the opposition Strong Armenia party's candidate for mayor of Stepanavan, is a classic example of political persecution. This was stated in a statement received by ArmInfo by the legal team of Arsen Gevorgyan, the Strong Armenia party's candidate for mayor of Stepanavan.

Gevorgyan's defense team recalled that on October 21, the Anti-Corruption Committee of Armenia opened a criminal case against Arsen Gevorgyan, who headed the Strong Armenia party's proportional list. in the Stepanavan Municipal Council elections, and 13 other individuals, grossly violating and ignoring the principle of the presumption of innocence.

"Despite the fact that representatives of the ruling authorities and the media supporting them are unhesitatingly trying to convince the public that the video contains instances of giving and receiving electoral bribes, we report that this is a classic example of political persecution, as the events and amounts shown in the published video have no connection whatsoever to the crime of giving or receiving electoral bribes." "At the same time, they are trying in every way to present a completely different reality to the public," Gevorgyan's legal team continued in a statement.

It is also noted that the amounts shown in the video were intended for campaign expenses, which, according to the constitutional law "Electoral Code of the Republic of Armenia," are not spent from election funds.

"An important circumstance that neutralizes the connection with the crime of voter bribery is that the transfer of funds was actually carried out between representatives of the same political party, and this conclusion has also not been made public. In most cases, these are candidates on the proportional list of the Strong Armenia party in the Stepanavan Municipal Council elections. It is, at the very least, illogical for representatives of the same party to bribe each other. "It is also clear that, by combining all of this with repressive arrests and ignoring other preventive measures, a political component to the criminal process is being revealed," the opposition politician's legal team concluded.

As a reminder, on October 21, Andranik Gevorgyan, a member of the Armenian parliament from the Strong Armenia opposition faction, reported on his Facebook page that mass searches and detentions of supporters of businessman Samvel Karapetyan's Strong Armenia movement had been underway in Stepanavan since early morning. The Anti-Corruption Committee of Armenia reported that 14 people had been detained on charges of "giving election bribes, aiding and abetting them, and accepting bribes." One of them was Arsen Gevorgyan, a Strong Armenia candidate for the post of head of the Stepanavan community. It was later revealed that he had been jailed for two months by a court decision. Five others were placed under two-month jail terms or house arrest.

It's worth noting that the day before these events, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan offered to write to him personally to citizens and candidates for community leaders in the local government elections who were under pressure from the ruling Civil Contract party. However, by the evening of that same day, he himself had begun threatening opposition representatives. It's worth noting that all of this is happening ahead of the local government elections in Stepanavan, which will take place on October 25.