Lawlessness unleashed by Nikol Pashinyan regime reaching new level -  ANC 

ArmInfo. The lawlessness unleashed by Nikol Pashinyan's regime is reaching a new level, according to a statement from the Armenian National Congress party.

The statement notes that on October 15, law enforcement officials, as  part of a criminal investigation, conducted searches of the building  of the Aragatsotn Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the  residence of the primate of the diocese, Bishop Mkrtich Proshyan, as  well as the apartments of clergy and diocese staff. The primate of  the diocese, 12 priests, and several staff members were subsequently  arrested.  The party believes this incident is the latest episode in  the political persecution that the authorities have long been  carrying out against the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church, the  Catholicos of All Armenians, and high-ranking clergy. These events  were preceded by the arrest of Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, a  fabricated criminal case against the head of the Shirak Diocese,  Archbishop Mikael Ajapakhyan, searches of his office and residence,  the arrest, a farce staged under the guise of a trial, and, finally,  an illegal court decision by which the latter was sentenced to two  years in prison.

As the statement recalls, the fabricated charges against the clergy  of the Aragatsotn Diocese are based on the "testimony" of Father Aram  Asatryan, given in an interview with Petros Ghazaryan on Public  Television, which was presented to the Prosecutor General of the  Republic of Armenia by Daniel Ioannisyan, Chairman of the Union of  Informed Citizens, as a criminal account. Father Aram Asatryan's  testimony, on the one hand, reveals an unprincipled individual who,  by his own admission, violated his own convictions by repeatedly  participating in opposition rallies. On the other hand, he presented  the following absurd justification as evidence of "coercion": "I  should have clearly explained why I wouldn't go." Daniel Ioannisyan,  the main culprit behind the authorities' legalization of persecution  and attacks on civil liberties, acted differently when, unlike the  aforementioned unsubstantiated case, the media published reports  containing numerous genuine criminal charges regarding the forced  transportation of teachers and medical staff to the final public  rally organized by the ruling authorities before the Gyumri  elections. However, the most important, unconstitutional violation is  that, in violation of Article 72 of the Constitution, the  prosecutor's office brought charges under an article of the Criminal  Code that had not yet entered into force at the time of the alleged  crime, that is, in 2021. The new version of the Criminal Code, the  adoption of which Daniel Ioannisyan is so proud, was adopted on May  5, 2021, and entered into force on July 1, 2022.  Meanwhile, Article  72 of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia states: "No one may  be convicted for an action or inaction that did not constitute a  crime at the time it was committed."

"Thus, the charges brought by the authorities are completely  unconstitutional and illegal. The same behavior prevails in the case  of Samvel Karapetyan's extension of pretrial detention. Government  officials have reached such a dead end that they no longer  distinguish between the methods of fabricating new charges. To the  point that, according to Samvel Karapetyan's lawyers, after a two-day  hearing, the judge was forced to conclude that "the charges for tax  evasion, duties, and money laundering did not cross the threshold of  suspicion." Despite this circumstance, the judge nonetheless  continued the lawlessness of his predecessors and extended the arrest  for 30 days under the charges, which is merely an exercise of the  right to freedom of speech. "Thus, the lawlessness unleashed by Nikol  Pashinyan's regime reaches a new level.  Pashinyan understands  perfectly well that, given the campaign against the identity of the  Armenian people unleashed at the behest of Azerbaijan, he has no  chance of being elected in free and fair democratic elections. "The  only way for it to reproduce itself is to create an atmosphere of  fear, eliminate or weaken potential opponents, and hold elections  under conditions of repression. We call for national unity to  preserve Armenia's independence and restore democracy, end the  campaign unleashed against the Armenian Apostolic Church, protect  civil liberties and human rights, and, in particular, immediately  release all political prisoners," the ANC statement reads.