Crowds block Armenian security forces seeking to arrest a clergyman who criticized the government

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Security forces faced off with crowds Friday at the headquarters of the Armenian Apostolic Church as the government sought to arrest a clergyman in the latest move against outspoken critics of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

The tense confrontation in Etchmiadzin, outside the capital of Yerevan, ended with security forces withdrawing without arresting Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan to avoid escalating the situation, Armenia’s National Security Service said. After the NSS urged him to appear before authorities, local media showed him entering the building of Armenia’s Investigative Committee in his gray robes.

His lawyer, Ara Zohrabyan, said Friday evening that Ajapahyan has been charged with publicly calling for the overthrow of the constitutional order and that investigators have asked a court to arrest him. A ruling is expected within 24 hours, Zohrabyan said, adding that Ajapahyan denies the charges.

Images on social media showed clergymen jostling with police as members of the NSS stood by. Bells of a nearby cathedral in the complex, known as the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin and home to church leader Catholicos Karekin II, rang out.

Pashinyan was the focus of protests last year by tens of thousands of demonstrators after Armenia agreed to hand over control of several border villages to Azerbaijan and to normalize relations between the neighbors and bitter rivals.

On Wednesday, authorities arrested Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, who leads the Sacred Struggle opposition movement, accusing him of plotting to overthrow the government. Armenia’s Investigative Committee alleged he was planning to carry out a sabotage campaign — charges that his lawyer described as “fiction.” Members of Sacred Struggle accused the government of cracking down on their political rights.

Another vocal critic of Pashinyan, Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, was arrested last week after being accused of calling for the government’s overthrow that he denied.

The NSS said in a statement that citizens should “refrain from escalating the situation and not to hinder law enforcement agencies in the execution of their duties.” It also urged Ajapahyan to not hide from law enforcement agencies and to appear before authorities.

Government prosecutors accuse Ajapahyan of calling for the ouster of the government in an interview on Feb. 3, 2024, according to his lawyer, Ara Zohrabyan.

Ajapahyan initially said he would accompany police, but ultimately did not enter the awaiting car.

“I have never hidden and I am not going to hide now,” Ajapahyan said. “I say that what is happening now is lawlessness. I have never been and am not a threat to this country, the main threat is in the government.”

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in territorial disputes since the early 1990s, as various parts of the Soviet Union pressed for independence from Moscow. After the USSR collapsed in 1991, ethnic Armenian separatist forces backed by the Armenian military won control of Azerbaijan’s region of Karabakh and nearby territories.

In 2020, Azerbaijan recaptured broad swaths of territory that were held for nearly three decades by Armenian forces. A lightning military campaign in September 2023 saw Azerbaijan fully reclaim control of Karabakh, and Armenia later handed over the border villages.

Pashinyan has recently sought to normalize relations with Azerbaijan. Last week, he also visited Azerbaijan’s top ally, Turkey, to mend a historic rift.

Turkey and Armenia also have a more than century-old dispute over the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in massacres, deportations and forced marches that began in 1915 in Ottoman Turkey. Historians widely view the event as genocide. Turkey vehemently rejects the label, conceding that many died in that era but insisting the death toll is inflated and resulted from civil unrest.

Attempts to impeach Pashinyan, who came to power in 2018, were unsuccessful.

Although territorial concessions were a core issue for Sacred Struggle, it has expanded to a wide array of complaints about Pashinyan as the Apostolic Church’s relationship with the government deteriorated.

On June 8, Pashinyan called for Karekin II to resign after accusing him of fathering a child despite a vow of celibacy. The church released a statement at the time accusing Pashinyan of undermining Armenia’s “spiritual unity” but did not address the claim about the child.