Samvel Karapetyan’s charges are blatant denial of justice and political persecution, says lawyer

Law enforcement continues to insist, under purely political persecution, that a single sentence spoken by Samvel Karapetyan on June 17, 2025, in defense of the Mother See constitutes a “call to seize power by force,” lawyer Aram Vardevanyan writes.

“Incidentally, it is solely on the basis of this ‘charge’ — essentially political persecution — that Samvel Karapetyan has been clearly and illegally detained for more than 120 days. The remaining economic-related charges have never been substantiated, and therefore no detention could have been justified even for a single day.

At the same time, on July 4, 2025, a mass rally and march in support of Samvel Karapetyan took place, without a single administrative violation occurring. Later, on Oct. 18, 2025, In Our Way movement organized another mass rally and march, again without a single administrative offense.

Mass public gatherings without any administrative violations, yet charges for a so-called call to seize power by force — for speaking in defense of the Mother See — clearly represent a blatant denial of justice and political persecution,” he wrote.