Police Chief Denies Preventing Anyone from Visiting Hovhannesavank

“We are ensuring public order, and we are not preventing anyone from coming. I will address further questions once I have a general understanding of what happened,” said Police Chief Aram Ghazaryan during a press conference with reporters at Hovhannesavank today. His comments were in response to lawyer Ara Zohrabyan's claims that Father Shnorhik was not allowed to visit Hovhannesavank and that two priests were detained, allegedly for not coming to the monastery and were later released.

Responding to additional information from the lawyer about the police maintaining surveillance near the residences of the priests who received notifications to appear before the investigative bodies, the police chief reiterated, “There is no such thing.”

It should be noted that lawyer Ara Zohrabyan reported that police had detained two priests rushing to Hovhannesavank and later released them after realizing they would not go to the church.