Armenia has detained the leader of the “sacred struggle” opposition movement, Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, who led mass anti-government protests last year, as well as dozens of his supporters.
Law enforcement agencies accused them of preparing “terrorist acts” to “seize power.”
Law enforcers conducted searches in the homes of Galstanyan and his associates. “In the clergyman’s house they did not find any items that could be grounds for criminal prosecution. They took away a handful of nails meant for shoes,” said his lawyer Sergey Harutyunyan.
The house of Artur Sargsyan, an opposition MP close to Galstanyan, was also searched. Sargsyan later said the raid underlined Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s “fears” and his attempts to “silence the opposition”.
Pashinyan said before Galstanyan’s detention that law enforcement officers had foiled a plan by “criminal oligarchic clergy” to destabilise the situation and seize power.
He attached to his publication a link to the press release of the Armenian Investigative Committee, which says that the leaders and participants of the “sacred struggle” movement were planning terrorist acts and seizure of power in the country.
Bagrat Galstanyan, according to the agency, “having failed to achieve in a few months the goal set by the movement to seize power in Armenia by means permitted by the Constitution of the country, since November 2024 he has set himself the goal to achieve it by means not permitted by the Constitution.”
The Armenian Investigative Committee accused the Archbishop and his supporters of allegedly “recruiting more than 1,000 people” in preparation for the “seizure of power” of January 2025, “obtaining a map of Yerevan to identify the main streets and plan actions”, “ordering and purchasing thousands of devices designed to carry out explosions and shots, as well as sharp metal parts suitable for damaging the tyres of vehicles”.
To achieve their goal, they planned to carry out terrorist attacks, arson and explosions, as well as create obstacles in tunnels, stage dozens of car accidents, and paralyse traffic across the country, the investigative body said.
It was the second arrest of a government opponent this month after Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, who denied the charges, was detained on 18 June on charges of publicly calling for a power grab.
Pashinyan came to power on a wave of street protests in 2018 but was criticised after defeats by Azerbaijan in a brief war in 2020. In September 2023, Azerbaijan took back full control of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of Azerbaijan under international law and had been controlled by ethnic Armenians for more than three decades. Thereafter, within days, Nagorno-Karabakh was abandoned by tens of thousands of Armenians who had lived there.
Galstanyan and his supporters led days of street protests last summer demanding Pashinyan’s removal.