The young men arrested yesterday following the incident at St. Anne’s Church are twin brothers, 18 years old, and are not party members.
“Both children have serious health issues that are incompatible with detention. Both we and the young men themselves consider these actions illegal. They have nothing to do with politics; they simply came to participate in a religious service, as usual,” the lawyer said in an interview.
Speaking about the problems that have arisen, Lusina Martirosyan noted: “The problem is that there is no human rights defender’s office in the Republic of Armenia. Hateful rhetoric against children is spreading. The police’s attitude and the way they conducted the detention procedure are also problematic. The fact that human rights defenders were unable to go upstairs for an hour yesterday, and the search was conducted without their participation, is also problematic.”
As a reminder, yesterday an incident occurred at Yerevan’s St. Anne Church, when Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, accompanied by security guards and other officials, attempted to leave the church during a service.
As security guards cleared a path, a young man from the crowd urged him not to push and said he wanted to remain seated.
“Don’t look at me like that,” the young man told the prime minister, then attempted to hit him with his hand.
Pashinyan urged his comrades not to react, making a silence gesture with his hand. Several hours after the incident, law enforcement took action, transferring the young men to PHAP (the Federal Counter-Terrorism Operations Center).