ACPR urges action over unlawful prosecution of Armenian opposition podcasters

The Armenian Center for Political Rights (ACPR) has appealed to the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, the Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, as well as several embassies and international human rights organizations working in the field of freedom of expression.

In its appeal, ACPR reported a court decision extending the pretrial detention of Narek Samsonyan and Vazgen Saghatelyan, co-hosts of the Imnemnimi podcast, by three more months. The full text of the letter is provided below.

"On January 9, the Court extended the pre-trial detention of Armenian podcasters Narek Samsonyan and Vazgen Saghatelyan for another 3 months. N. Samsonyan declared a hunger strike.

The criminal charge against podcasters is a blatant violation of the law, as it circumvents the decriminalisation of insult. In one of their podcast episodes, V. Saghatelyan read aloud a Facebook post by Civil Contract party board member and Speaker of the National Assembly, Alen Simonyan, who had called them “sons of dogs.” In response, Saghatelyan used a similar insult, for which the podcasters were later arrested and charged with “hooliganism.” On November 14, 2025, the podcasters were subjected to two months of pre-trial detention. On January 9, 2026, the detention period was extended for another 3 months.

On December 11, 2025, the Council of Europe Platform for the Safety of Journalists issued a Level 1 alert concerning the detention of Vazgen Saghatelyan and Narek Samsonyan, as well as the seizure of Antifake TV’s property. However, the Armenian authorities took no action. Accordingly, Armenia is the 3rd member state of the Council of Europe by the number of Journalists and other media actors currently in detention.

The details and analysis of the case are available in the ACPR's statements attached to this email.

We call to urgently review, within the scope of your mandates, the unlawful criminal prosecution and detention of podcasters Vazgen Saghatelyan and Narek Samsonyan. We further urge you to issue relevant messages to the Armenian authorities and draw their attention to this matter."