In Armenia, trampling on religious freedom and democratic values

JNS-Jewish Press

Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan should be held accountable for a pattern of actions that, taken together, undermine the rule of law and democracy. What we are seeing today has not been witnessed in Armenia since the fall of communism: the persecution of the Armenian Apostolic Church; imprisonment of a growing number of clergy and lay Christians, including one of the church’s most prominent supporters, philanthropist and investor Samvel Karapetyan; and an expropriation campaign against Karapetyan’s Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA), Armenia’s largest electricity distributor and one of its most significant private employers.

We write from two perspectives that converge on the same principle: no government, especially one that seeks the benefits of Western partners, should weaponize criminal law and administrative power to punish faith-based dissent, imprison critics and seize private property. One of us serves as U.S. counsel to Karapetyan, and is a leading human-rights and religious freedom activist. The other leads Christian Solidarity International’s work defending persecuted Christians and other vulnerable faith communities.

Similar missions, same alarm: What is happening in Armenia is a stress test for international religious freedoms and democratic credibility.

The arrest of Samvel Karapetyan

The case that sparked this alarm is as revealing as it is shocking. On June 17, 2025, Karapetyan left a church service commemorating 40 days since his father’s death. Asked by a journalist about the prime minister’s public and vulgar attacks on the Armenian Apostolic Church, he defended the church. “If the politicians fail, then we will participate in our own way,” he said.

On Facebook, Pashinyan reacted furiously. “Why have the licentious ‘clergymen’ and their licentious ‘philanthropists’ become so active?” he wrote in a post. “No worries—we’ll neutralize them again. This time, permanently.”

Within hours, Karapetyan was behind bars, accused of “calling to seize power”—a charge based entirely the words he spoke in his television interview earlier in the day.

The next day, before any court could weigh facts or evidence, the prime minister publicly announced, Soviet-style, that the state would take over ENA, the Karapetyan family’s flagship investment. Within a matter of days, legislation was pushed through enabling a takeover, and state-appointed managers were installed.

The new persecution of the Armenian church

The nationalization of Karapetyan’s businesses mirrors Pashinyan’s campaign to nationalize the Armenian Apostolic Church—a 1,700-year-old body that unites millions of Armenians scattered across the world. After jailing Karapetyan in June, Armenian authorities have proceeded to arrest four bishops of the Armenian church, along with dozens of lay supporters of the church, including journalists, church employees, a lawyer for the clergy and relatives of the Catholicos, the head of the church. Pashinyan has repeatedly demanded that the Catholicos step down—a flagrant attack on the freedom of the Armenian church to govern itself. In recent months, Armenia’s National Security Service has begun pressuring priests not to use the Catholicos’ name in their liturgy.

Christian Solidarity International, the World Council of Churches and local Armenian NGOs have condemned this pressure campaign as a direct attack on religious freedom.

The prime minister’s end goal is crystal clear: to seize control of or break Armenia’s national church, an institution that has kept the Armenian nation together through centuries of statelessness, dispossession and genocide, but whose influence on society Pashinyan now sees as unacceptable competition in his quest for power.

The message the government is sending to believers with Karapetyan’s arrest and the arrests that have followed is unmistakable: defend the church at your peril.

Intimidation through arbitrary detention

Despite the transparent weakness of charges against him, Karapetyan has been held in pre-trial detention since his arrest last June.

In a country whose constitution and criminal procedure code recognize a detainee’s right to challenge the legality of detention—analogous to the U.S. procedure of habeas corpus—this maneuver represents a direct subversion of judicial safeguards. Armenia’s own laws prohibit arbitrary arrest and require courts to review detention in a timely, public manner. Yet in Karapetyan’s case, hearings were largely closed and appellate review perfunctory, giving undeserved and dangerous cover to wrongful governmental conduct.

After more than six months in detention, on Dec. 30, an Armenian court replaced Karapetyan’s pretrial detention with house arrest and bail. This has been described by Karapetyan’s Armenian defense counsel as an “intensive” form of house arrest, approaching deprivation of liberty.

Prolonged coercive confinement—whether in prison or “intensive” house arrest—exacts physical and psychological costs. The risk is compounded where proceedings lack transparency, where hearings are closed or perfunctory, and where authorities can tighten restrictions without meaningful accountability.

The underlying charges remain, the proceedings continue, and the pressure on the church and its defenders has not abated. Four bishops of the church remain in prison, all on manufactured or politicized charges: Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, Archbishop Mikayel Ajapahyan, Archbishop Arshak Khachatryan and Bishop Mkrtich Proshyan.

Whether one views the church primarily as a religious institution, a custodian of Armenian identity, or both, criminalizing or intimidating its clergy and lay defenders corrodes the foundational commitments of a democratic state. Karapetyan’s case and that of the imprisoned bishops sit squarely within this atmosphere.

An attack on investors and treaty compliance

The seizure of Electric Networks of Armenia is a case study in the weaponization of law against private investors. In July, an emergency arbitrator under the Armenia-Cyprus Bilateral Investment Treaty ordered Armenia to halt its expropriation campaign. The ruling was binding. Pashinyan ignored it. The appointed administrator continues to replace management, cancel contracts and insert political loyalists into operational roles.

The government’s refusal to implement the emergency award has drawn notice from regional analysts who warn that Armenia’s treatment of Electric Networks may deter foreign investment, even as Armenia courts European and U.S. development aid. This defiance of international legal process, combined with the detention of the company’s ownership, is unconscionable and unacceptable.

The principle at stake is simple: If a government pretending to be an ally of the United States and of democracy itself can jail a principal owner and install loyalists to run his company while ignoring binding interim measures, the credibility of Armenia’s commitments and the reliability of its courts are called into question. This should alarm every U.S. and E.U. policymaker concerned with the sanctity of investment protections, treaty compliance and regional economic development in the context of long-sought peace.

Why U.S. engagement is needed now

The United States and its allies have invested heavily in portraying Armenia as a democratic partner in the South Caucasus. That image was on display when Pashinyan was hosted by U.S. President Donald Trump last August, alongside Azerbaijan’s president at the White House. But photo opportunities and joint statements cannot substitute for the hard work of safeguarding liberties at home.

During Pashinyan’s White House visit and subsequent meetings with U.S. and E.U. officials, he sought to project reform and rapprochement with Azerbaijan. At the White House, the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan issued a joint declaration of their intention to reach a peace agreement. Yet the project remains fragile. Azerbaijan refuses to sign the peace treaty and is instead making further demands.

On the Armenian side, the peace effort is threatened by political repression and international religious freedom and human-rights violations. Pashinyan’s authoritarian turn threatens a domestic backlash and instability that endangers American goals with the peace process.

The State Department’s 2023 Human Rights Report stated there were no political prisoners in Armenia. That claim is no longer the truth. If left unchecked, Armenia’s blatant attack upon the Armenian Apostolic Church and its supporters, including Karapetyan, will signal to every investor, religious community and dissident in Armenia that political power trumps the constitution, court orders and international law. It will also embolden other governments, including adversaries of the United States, to believe they can seize foreign assets and jail business leaders without consequence.

Why this matters to Israel and the free world

As Armenia seeks favor and enhanced status in Washington, Europe and with Israel, the danger signs of the Armenian prime minister’s conduct cannot be countenanced. International religious freedom and other fundamental human rights are at stake. In Israel, where protections are given to all religions, religious institutions, properties and people, it is essential to take note—and not to give a blind free pass to Armenia’s prime minister.

Armenia holds a special place in the hearts and minds of the Israeli and Jewish people. The Armenian nation has a permanent presence in the precious Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem, and Armenian Christians are able to practice their faith in Israel in freedom, secure from violence in a region where safe places for Christians are quickly disappearing.

The Armenian people and the Jewish people share histories and tragedies.  What occurred to the Armenian people in the early 1900s is unthinkable, referred to as the Armenian genocide. The attempted annihilation of the Jewish people throughout Europe during the Holocaust remains beyond comprehension. Rafael Lemkin properly named it as the crime of genocide, uniquely referencing the horrors and tragedies of the Shoah.

Like Israel, Armenia is surrounded by hostile powers that would gladly conquer or destroy it altogether, given the chance. Also like Israel, it extends religious freedom to people who live there, including Yazidis, and a small but thriving Jewish community.

The prime minister’s campaign against the church and its supporters threatens this. If the government is allowed to trample on the rights of Armenia’s national church with impunity, what is to stop Armenia’s Jews from suffering the same treatment, as soon as they likewise become “inconvenient”?

It is in Israel’s interests for Armenia to remain a sovereign, secure and a free country.

What Washington should do

The Trump administration and Congress should take concrete, rights-based steps:

1) Publicly call for the full lifting of coercive custodial measures against Karapetyan and for dismissal of the charges lodged against him in violation of due process, and his right to free expression and religious freedom.

2) Engage directly with Armenia’s prime minister to make it clear that his conduct is unacceptable, augmented by communications through the ambassador of Armenia in Washington, U.S. Embassy in Yerevan, U.S. State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom, and Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor to demand transparent, fair judicial processes and compliance with basic rights.

3) Congress should hold hearings on the crackdown on the church and the Karapetyan case, and call for a full review of the prime minister’s wrongful conduct, including through the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, the U.S. Helsinki Commission and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

4) Make clear that continued retaliation against the Armenian Apostolic Church and its supporters, including in the form of defiance of investment protections, will carry consequences for Armenia’s relationship with the United States.

5) Ensure that official U.S. reporting reflects the facts on the ground, including the use of coercive criminal measures against the church and its supporters, such as Karapetyan.

6) Monitor Armenia’s compliance with binding emergency arbitral measures and condition certain forms of U.S. government assistance on demonstrable adherence to due process and property-rights standards.

7) Demand that the prime minister make a full retreat from his attack upon the leaders of the Armenian Apostolic Church and its supporters, including the philanthropist Samvel Karapetyan.

A test of values and credibility

The government of Armenia’s attack upon the Armenian Apostolic Church and the related Karapetyan case is more than a mere human tragedy. It is a denial of the basic human rights espoused by the United States and its allies, such as the democratic State of Israel. Trump deserves credit for strengthening America’s strategic partnership with Armenia. He should not be repaid by the reckless and destabilizing campaign Armenia’s prime minister is now waging.

We must not look away when a government, portraying itself as our ally and one which respects human rights, religious freedom and economic success, jails a man for defending his faith, strips him of his livelihood, absconds with his company, manipulates the courts to extend his detention and ignores binding international rulings.

This is not about only one church, one man or one company. It is about whether Armenia, a self-described democratic partner, will be held to democratic standards—standards that protect religious communities from intimidation, protect speech from retaliation and protect property from politically motivated seizure.

Armenia’s friends, especially the United States, must insist that its government align its conduct with the rights it professes to honor. To do otherwise would undermine U.S. credibility and invite further instability and attacks on the rule of law.

About the Authors:

Richard D. Heideman is senior counsel at Heideman Nudelman & Kalik, PC of Washington, D.C, which is registered with the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate on behalf of and as U.S. counsel to Samvel Karapetyan. He has testified before numerous governments on human and victims rights matters. He has served in senior leadership roles in Jewish communal organizations, including as chairman of The Israel Forever Foundation, chairman of the JNS International Policy Summit and a former president of B’nai B’rith International.

John Eibner is president of Christian Solidarity International (CSI), a Christian human-rights organization focused on religious freedom and human dignity. He has led CSI advocacy and field work in conflict zones, including the Caucasus, for more than 30 years, and has publicly warned about the implications of the Armenian government’s attack on the Armenian Apostolic Church, its clergy and its supporters.