Your trusted source

The Armenian Center for Political Rights recently released a report on the persecution of opposition activists Narek Samsonyan and Vazgen Saghatelyan, dubbing them “prisoners of conscience”.

In late March, Vazgen Saghatelyan and Narek Samsonyan, co-hosts of the Imnemnimi podcast, were given two-month pretrial detention on charges of “hooliganism” after they used slur language to criticize Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his government.

What does the phrase "prisoners of conscience" imply? Panorama.am reached out to Rafayel Ishkhanyan, a human rights defender at the Armenian Center for Political Rights, for comment on the matter and others.

"The term "prisoner of conscience" was introduced by human rights organizations. Prisoners of conscience are persons imprisoned for their political, religious or other beliefs. The fact remains that they have not committed any wrongdoing," the human rights activist explained.

According to him, political prisoners are persons who may have done something wrong and should be held responsible for it, however their punishment is disproportionate and amounts to human rights violations.

"In case of political prisoners, fair trials are generally demanded, while calls for the immediate release of prisoners of conscience prevail because what they’ve done is not something forbidden at all," said the human rights activist.

Ishkhanyan claims the actions of Narek Samsonyan and Vazgen Saghatelyan have nothing to do with hooliganism. In addition, insults have been decriminalized in Armenia.

"It cannot be criminalized. Otherwise, it means that a person is punished wrongfully, which is one of the most classical forms of persecution," the activist underscored.

He did not rule out that there are other prisoners of conscience in Armenia besides Samsonyan and Saghatelyan but stressed the need for a research before making such assessments.

The Armenian Center for Political Rights has submitted the report to the Armenian offices of international organizations and human rights groups, awaiting their response.