95% of Violence Calls in Court Target Pashinyan and His Supporters, Says ‘Hetq’

On April 15, 2020, the Criminal Code was amended with Article 226.2, which pertains to public calls for violence, the public justification or promotion of violence. This was reported by ‘Hetq’. The new Criminal Code replaces this article with Article 330, which prohibits public calls for violence against an individual or group based on race, national, ethnic, or social origin, religion, political or other beliefs, or other personal or social circumstances, as well as the public justification or promotion of such violence.

Since the adoption of the article, 38 criminal cases have reached the courts over the past four years. Of these cases, 36 (94.7%) relate to calls directed towards Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his supporters. The cases based on calls directed personally at Prime Minister Pashinyan account for 68.4% of the total. If we analyze these figures by year, we see that no cases reached the courts in 2020. In 2021, 12 cases reached the courts, with 10 of them concerning Nikol Pashinyan and his supporters and 2 regarding the opposition. In 2022, 8 cases reached the courts, while 18 were recorded in 2023. In the last two years, all cases have been related to Nikol Pashinyan and his supporters.

The article establishes penalties in the form of fines of up to ten times the minimum wage, or community service of up to one hundred hours, or restricted freedom for up to one year, or short-term imprisonment for up to one month, or imprisonment for up to one year. According to the second part of the article, if the act was committed by a group of individuals with prior agreement, using official or service powers, or utilizing publicly displayed works, media, or communications technologies, the penalties include fines of up to fifteen to twenty times the minimum wage, or community service of one hundred to two hundred hours, or deprivation of specific positions or activities for two to five years, or restricted freedom for up to two years, or short-term imprisonment for up to two months, or imprisonment for up to three years.