Personally, I Will Hold on to My Hope for Another 2-3 Days: Ruben Melikyan

If we put it briefly, "political prisoner" means "clearly deprived of freedom in an unlawful manner," along with "political motivation." For two weeks now, Arsen Babayan has been clearly deprived of his freedom unlawfully. The reasons behind why it is "unlawful" have been discussed extensively. I will not present them again here. However, much less has been said about the "political motivation." More specifically, the conversation has primarily revolved around the ruling party's political motivation regarding "capturing" the Constitutional Court and removing its president.

This was stated by Ruben Melikyan, the president of the NGO "Legal Path," on his Facebook page. What has not been sufficiently highlighted is another equally important component of "political motivation": Arsen Babayan’s professional and substantiated criticism of the ruling political power's policies, which I believe has not been adequately covered.

Since completing his public service in January and until his unlawful deprivation of freedom, Arsen was not merely a distributor of critical content; he was a creator of quality critical content. Furthermore, he was perceived as such by media outlets with opposing editorial policies. Arsen's words were disseminated and often resulted in repercussions.

Thus, by clearly isolating Arsen unlawfully, the ruling party has effectively silenced a valuable critic and public watchdog, which in itself contains serious "political motivation." Below are some examples of Arsen's critical discourse.

PS: The ruling party has a good opportunity to slightly mitigate the undesirable consequences of the situation it has created by using the available chance to release Arsen on personal guarantee. Personally, I will hold on to my hope for another 2-3 days that they will take advantage of this opportunity.

PS-2: Arsen Babayan should be released.

It is noteworthy that Babayan is accused of aiding the usurpation of power and committing official forgery. On October 22, the Special Investigation Service decided to arrest Babayan. The court deemed his arrest unlawful, but approved the SIS's request to detain Babayan.