The RPA Vice Chairman addressed a message to the European Union structures in connection with the arrest of schoolboy David Minasyan

ArmInfo. Vice Chairman of the Republican Party of Armenia Armen Ashotyan addressed a message to the European Union regarding the arrest of schoolboy David Minasyan.

In his address outside the EU Delegation in Yerevan, Ashotyan noted that he was standing in front of a building for which citizens of European countries pay taxes. "I stand here today not with diplomatic politeness, but with a boiling heart. I stand before this building, this supposed symbol of Europe, justice, human dignity, and I am ashamed. Not for my country, but for those who call themselves its moral <educators> but in reality turn a blind eye to it. Behind me is a building whose windows remain closed, whose diplomats remain silent, while a schoolboy sits in a prison cell for the <crime> of expressing his opinion in church. David Minasyan is 18 years old. He is a schoolboy. His only <crime> was being in St. Anne's Church on Palm Sunday, surrounded by guards, who hit him in the face, threw him to the ground, and who is behind bars? Not those who hit him, but David himself. For a gesture. For a word," Ashotyan noted.

He added that today David is in custody like a common criminal. "Two months." For feeling disappointed in the presence of a <prime minister> who apparently considers himself above the law and God. Where is Europe? Where are you? You, who give endless lectures on democracy. You, who demand transparency, preach the rule of law, make solemn statements about human rights in every corner of the world. You are standing here in Yerevan, preparing for a big summit with this government in May. You will smile. You will shake hands. You will sign documents on <partnership>. You will drink Armenian cognac. But I ask you: what kind of partnership is built on the basis of child freedom? Your silence is not neutrality. Your silence is complicity. You will not say a word about Davit Minasyan, because you do not want to disgrace the man who smiles in front of your cameras. You will not remember democratic norms, because you need a <stable partner> for your geopolitics. You will not criticize the persecution of the Armenian Apostolic Church because you do not want to <interfere in internal affairs>. But let me tell you what is happening inside those internal affairs: the rule of law is dying. The courts are puppets. The prime minister’s security forces beat teenagers in churches, and the teenagers end up in jail. Meanwhile, regime loyalists can spit on citizens with impunity. This is not a democracy. This is a dictatorship with a European façade. And you, you, the European Union, help create this façade. You sit in your embassies, write your reports, use words like <concern>, <reforms>, <encouraging steps>, <hybrid war>. But where is your outrage? Where is your moral clarity? If you cannot protect an 18-year-old schoolboy, what are you defending? If you remain silent while the Armenian people are deprived of their fundamental freedoms, what do your treaties mean? If you accept a government that jails its critics while pretending to build a <European future>, then you are not building Europe, you are burying its values ​​on Armenian soil. Let me be clear. I am a patriot. I want a European way of life and a European way of doing things for Armenia. I want our people to enjoy the freedoms Europeans take for granted. But I am here, and I will not allow you to use the European dream as a shield for tyranny. You cannot lecture us about democracy while shaking hands with a regime that imprisons children. You cannot demand judicial reform while ignoring the judge who signed Davit Minasyan’s arrest warrant without evidence. You cannot call yourselves human beings. Defenders of human rights, you remain silent while the Armenian Apostolic Church, the soul of our nation, is persecuted. Shame on you. Shame on your silence. Shame on your hypocrisy. Shame on the diplomats who look out their windows, who see me here, who know the truth and do nothing. Davit Minasyan must be released. Today. Not tomorrow. Not after the summit. Now. And until you find your voice, until you stop being accomplices of authoritarianism, you don't deserve to call this place the "Delegation of the European Union." You don't deserve the trust of the Armenian people and the citizens of Europe. We will not remain silent. We will not bow. We will continue to fight for our freedoms, with or without you. History will remember those who stood with the oppressed and those who turned away," the RPA Vice Chairman noted.