A Decision Has Been Made to Deprive Me of Freedom: Ara Vardanyan

The former director of the Pan-Armenian Foundation, Ara Vardanyan, announced that a decision has been made to deprive him of his freedom. He made this statement on his Facebook page.

In his post, he stated: “Dear friends, the authorities that present slogans of democracy, freedom of speech, and the rule of law are actually going in the exact opposite direction. After dividing the public into blacks and whites, they have now moved on to dividing ‘ours’ and ‘yours.’ For ‘ours,’ there is complete impunity, while for ‘yours,’ there are illegal prosecutions and loss of freedom. We are now transitioning to a regime of dictatorship, where a person is deprived of freedom without substantial evidence. They think that by doing this, they will silence those who do not fit under their ‘brave’ hat, but they are gravely mistaken.

A decision has been made to deprive me of my freedom. I do not fully accept the charges against me and will fight until this absurdity comes to an end. This is a simplistic move to silence me. They do not understand that being detained in a state of imprisonment and dictatorship is not a punishment, but a point of pride. I have never caused even a unit of damage to the state. On the contrary, I have sought to be useful in the embellishment of our homeland. Very soon, everything will fall into place.

The NSS illegally detained me for the first time almost a year ago. There was no basis for the detention. Meanwhile, there are people emerging who are utterly undermining the dignity of our law enforcement agencies. I see all this from a different perspective and believe I am finding something valuable in these violations. People are self-exposing, and very soon they will answer to the full extent of the law.

Dear friends, hold on tight; everything is still ahead.”