Direct Participants Must Be Arrested: Ashot Pashinyan Makes Comments

The son of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Ashot Pashinyan, has made posts on his Facebook page regarding the events occurring at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin. He wrote, 'So you knew you could do whatever you want behind the walls of the church? You send people to organize large-scale bloodshed, incite military coups, and call for filling the streets with blood, and you think you can escape justice in God’s name? For you, God and religion are merely tools to justify murder. What the state is doing is more than justifiable; it is a direct demand for justice. They must do much more, all direct participants in organizing mass murders must be arrested. Anyone who could potentially participate must be under strict surveillance. What the state is doing is not even sufficient. And there is no political context here. This is a matter of whether or not there is any politics at all. The state has an obligation, in front of me, the public, the children, all of us, to respond clearly to this. No individual who organizes such scale bloodshed can roam freely in our streets. No organization can exist. We will deal with politics when there is a rule of law in Armenia, not under conditions where every person walking the streets of Yerevan is under a direct threat of death,' he wrote.

In another post, Ashot Pashinyan noted, 'There should be no terrorist groups in Armenia, let alone engage in politics. Politics should not happen under the conditions of bloodshed and threats of death. That’s the end of the discussion.'