Opposition activist, bishop Bagrat Galstanyan under arrest for alleged coup participation

By Alexander Pracht

This is a developing story and will be updated as new information becomes available.

Armenian opposition activist and senior clergyman Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan was detained Wednesday as part of a sweeping crackdown on opposition figures.

The arrests follow Tuesday’s media reports of an alleged coup plot and searches at the homes of numerous opposition figures, including Igor Sargsyan, a member of the Supreme Body of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, and town council members in Vagharshapat, home to the Mother See of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

The Investigative Committee said in a statement that “participants and leaders of the movement known as ‘Sacred Struggle’ planned to carry out terrorist acts and actions aimed at seizing power in the Republic of Armenia.”

“To achieve their criminal goals of seizing power, [Galstanyan]. and other members of the group planned terrorist acts, including bombings and shootings, potentially leading to mass casualties, as well as cutting off electricity and Internet connection by damaging cables and equipment, orchestrating mass car accidents with deliberate collisions, setting fire to public facilities, widespread destruction of traffic lights, and disabling trolleybus power lines, among other acts, to provoke panic, fear, and chaos,” the statement read.

The agency also published voice recordings in which a voice resembling Galstanyan’s discusses plans to bomb the parliament and refers to Armenians as a “brutish nation.” There is no way of verifying the authenticity of the recordings. Authorities have not specified who made them, when, or where.

Galstanyan led last year’s protests calling for the removal of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s cabinet amid rising tensions between the government and the Armenian Apostolic Church after the 2020 Karabakh war. The rift deepened recently after Pashinyan accused Catholicos Karekin II of violating his celibacy vows and urged his replacement, with other church leaders also under pressure.

The crackdown comes after Russian-based Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan was arrested on charges of inciting a government overthrow last Wednesday.