The incident occurred in Nshavan, a village 20 kilometers south of Yerevan, three weeks before Armenia’s disputed parliamentary elections. The Investigative Committee moved to charge a local resident, Armen Hovannisian, with obstruction of the Civil Contract party’s election campaign following his arrest.
Hovannisian was transferred from a local police station to a psychiatric clinic in Yerevan after engaging what the Armenia Interior Ministry described as “mentally unbalanced behavior” the next morning. According to the ministry, Hovannisian hanged himself there several hours later.
The man’s death sparked an uproar from over a dozen Armenian civic groups. They said that he should not have been arrested in the first place because under Armenian law his action is punishable by a fine, rather than imprisonment. The Armenian police launched an internal inquiry into the arrest at the time.
A police spokesperson told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Wednesday that the inquiry was discontinued because of a criminal investigation conducted by another law-enforcement agency. Nobody has been arrested or charged in that investigation.
Zaruhi Hovannisian (no relation to the deceased man), a veteran human rights activist, said this fact shows that the security apparatus operates with impunity when it targets critics of the country’s current leadership. She suggested that the Nshavan man’s arrest was meant to “please the government.”
“If individuals are punished after making decisions to please the government, there is a danger that others will not make such decisions,” she said.
During and after the election campaign, the authorities detained hundreds of opposition members and supporters on mostly vote-buying charges denied by the Armenian opposition. They have been far more lenient towards Pashinian’s loyalists accused of assaulting opposition supporters.
One such incident occurred in Nor Kyurin, a village close to Nshavan, on June 2. A local council member affiliated with Civil Contract was caught on camera punching one of the supporters of the main opposition Strong Armenia bloc who campaigned in the community. The Investigative Committee confirmed on Wednesday that it has not prosecuted him.
Another video shot on election day in Lichk, a village in the eastern Gegharkunik province, showed several men led by the village chief, Sirakan Sirakanian, beating up a Strong Armenia proxy. The latter said he was assaulted after telling them not to interfere with the voting.
Sirakanian was never prosecuted. The authorities instead indicted but not arrested two other men.