Sit-in held in support of activist Lidya Mantashyan in Yerevan

War participants and supporters of the Holy Struggle movement launched a sit-in outside the Prosecutor General’s Office in Yerevan on Monday, demanding the release of Lidya Mantashyan, the movement’s only female member currently in detention.

Mantashyan, an activist for the group led by the now-detained Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, who is accused of plotting a coup in Armenia along with his supporters, has been held since June 26. Her pre-trial detention was extended by three months in August and again on November 20.

The protesters condemned Mantashyan’s imprisonment as politically motivated.

“We’re trying to raise awareness that while the authorities claim democratic norms are established in Armenia, there are still political prisoners, including women,” protester Arman Petrosyan told Panorama.am, urging human rights groups to speak out and warning that silence “would amount to serving the current authorities".

Petrosyan argued that the repeated extensions of Mantashyan’s detention were intended to pressure Galstanyan. He expressed hope that the chief prosecutor, being a woman herself, would “feel morally compelled” to revise the pre-trial measure.

Another participant, Arman Mkhitaryan, stressed the importance of informing the public that “there is a female political prisoner in the country”, adding that “Armenia is no longer a republic but a dictatorship”, where all branches of government are controlled by a single individual.

He said the group may later relocate its protest to the government building, which he described as “a more direct target”.

Protester Hovsep Ghazaryan said “repressions are intensifying in Armenia day by day” and that Mantashyan’s case “was the last straw”. He called her detention unacceptable, especially given that she is a woman.

“We demand that Lidya be released or that her measure of restraint be changed,” Ghazaryan said. “We have no expectations from law enforcement, only from society to apply pressure for her release.”