Former MP slams charges against activists Narek Samsonyan and Vazgen Saghatelyan

Former MP Naira Zohrabyan denounced the charges against opposition activists Narek Samsonyan and Vazgen Saghatelyan as she visited the Yerevan Criminal Court in the Avan district to attend preliminary hearings in their case on Tuesday.

Vazgen Saghatelyan and Narek Samsonyan, co-hosts of the Imnemnimi podcast, were given two-month pretrial detention on 22 March on charges of hooliganism after using slur language to criticize Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his government for their plans to cede territories to Azerbaijan. If found guilty, they could face up to five years in prison.

"Narek Samsonyan and Vazgen Saghatelyan are standing trial for the words which, I guess, some 80-85 percent of people are using against the ruling regime and its leader 24 hours a day,” Zohrabyan told reporters outside the court building.

The former MP urged the presiding judge not to become an “instrument of political revenge” for Nikol Pashinyan.

“The cases involving Narek Samsonyan and Vazgen Saghatelyan, as well as [oppositionists] Armen Ashotyan, Narek Malyan and Mamikon Aslanyan, will go to the European Court of Human Rights someday, and I wouldn’t like to see judges “whimpering” under its walls, as Pashinyan put it,” the politician said.