Human rights activist urges release of ‘political prisoner’ Arush Arushanyan after election win
Human rights activist Ruben Melikyan called for the release of arrested opposition politician Arush Arushanyan after the latter won Sunday’s local elections in Armenia’s Goris community.
According to preliminary results, Arushanyan, who represents the Armenia bloc, garnered 6,256 votes, defeating by a wide margin the candidate of Nikol Pashinyan's Civil Agreement party, Vladimir Abunts.
"When opposition MPs accuse Nikol Pashinian of treachery from the National Assembly tribune, he calmly says: "The people responded to these accusations with their vote of confidence at the June 20 elections." By the same logic, the people responded to the accusations against Arush Arushanyan with their vote on October 17,” Melikyan wrote on Facebook.
“Therefore, if Arush is not released today, the supreme scoundrel will be deprived of such a "pleasant" argument of the “vote of confidence".
“Freedom to political prisoner Arush Arushanyan! Freedom to all other political prisoners!" he said.
Arush Arushanyan has been in custody since 16 July. He is charged with allegedly buying votes for the Armenia bloc in the June 20 snap parliamentary elections.