Artsakh resident who argued with Armenian premier transferred to  pretrial detention center

ArmInfo.  Artur Osipyan, head of the Artsakh Revolutionary Party, who engaged in a dispute with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, has been transferred to a pretrial detention center. Artsakh lawyer Roman Yeritsyan announced this on his Facebook page.

He said that law enforcement agencies have opened a criminal case  against Osipyan for hooliganism.  "According to the charges, Osipyan  obstructed the ruling Civil Contract party's campaign, disturbed the  peace, argued with the prime minister, and made offensive statements  toward him. Although the video shows who was being offensive,"  Yeritsyan noted, adding that Osipyan will likely be charged on May 19  and a motion for his arrest will be filed.

In turn, Daniel Ioannisyan, program coordinator for the NGO "Union of  Informed Citizens," stated that Artur Osipyan's actions did not  constitute hooliganism or any other criminal offense. "Artur Osipyan  expressed political criticism of candidate Nikol Pashinyan, for which  he received personal, humiliating attacks in response, including the  words, 'Go and die!'" It is seriously concerning that the law  enforcement response was not based on a proportionate and impartial  assessment of the entire incident, but was limited to depriving  Osipyan of his liberty. Meanwhile, no similar visible measures were  taken against other individuals who displayed aggressive behavior and  made offensive statements during the same incident, including  supporters of the ruling political party," Ioannisyan noted in his  Facebook post.

He also called on law enforcement agencies to immediately provide a  public explanation of the factual basis for Osipyan's detention,  explain whether the actions of the other participants in the incident  were assessed, and why the same or equivalent measures were not taken  against them.

On May 18, an argument broke out between Osipyan and the Armenian  prime minister in Yerevan's Arabkir district. Osipyan accused  Pashinyan of helping Arayik Harutyunyan get elected president of  Artsakh through corruption. Moreover, he noted that it was Pashinyan  who dissolved the OSCE Minsk Group on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,  and now the Azerbaijani authorities are promoting an agenda of  settling Azerbaijanis in Armenia. These words infuriated Pashinyan,  who began shouting, "Get out of here, you big guy," and "Let the  Karabakh pseudo-elites get out of here altogether." "You Artur  Osipyans should have died instead of our sons! You plunderers, you  bastards! You should have died! Why are you alive, you brute, and  even talking about 5,000 dead? Get out, you big guy! You should have  let them pluck your feathers now," Pashinyan began shouting.