The decision came ten days after Narek Samsonian underwent surgery in a hospital in Yerevan following a two-week hunger strike in prison. He stopped refusing food late last month after prison authorities reluctantly allowed his transfer to the Izmirlian Medical Center in the Armenian capital.
Simonian branded Samsonian and the other podcast host, Vazgen Saghatelian, as “sons of a b*tch” when he commented on their seven-hour interview with former President Serzh Sarkisian broadcast live on YouTube in early November. They responded to him with offensive language.
The speaker affiliated with the ruling Civil Contract party demanded criminal proceedings against them, saying that they not only insulted but also threatened him. Two days later, officers of Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) demonstratively detained the podcasters, searching their homes and their studio in the process. Another law-enforcement agency, the Investigative Committee, swiftly charged them with hooliganism.
The two vocal critics of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian continued to strongly deny the accusation when they went on trial on January 9. Samsonian announced his hunger strike in the courtroom right after the presiding judge extended his and Saghatelian’s arrest by three months. The Court of Appeals overturned that extension, granting Samsonian house arrest.
According to one of the defense lawyers, Ruben Melikian, Samsonian will remain in the hospital for a few more days.
Dozens of other critics of Pashinian, including an opposition mayor and three archbishops of the Armenian Apostolic Church, have also been arrested in recent months in what the Armenian opposition calls a pre-election government crackdown on dissent. The authorities deny that they are political prisoners.