On January 9, the Court extended the pre-trial detention of Armenian podcasters Narek Samsonyan and Vazgen Saghatelyan for another 3 months. N. Samsonyan declared a hunger strike.
The criminal charge against podcasters is a blatant violation of the law, as it circumvents the decriminalisation of insult. In one of their podcast episodes, V. Saghatelyan read aloud a Facebook post by Civil Contract party board member and Speaker of the National Assembly, Alen Simonyan, who had called them “sons of dogs.” In response, Saghatelyan used a similar insult, for which the podcasters were later arrested and charged with “hooliganism.” On November 14, 2025, the podcasters were subjected to two months of pre-trial detention. On January 9, 2026, the detention period was extended for another 3 months.
On December 11, 2025, the Council of Europe Platform for the Safety of Journalists issued a Level 1 alert concerning the detention of Vazgen Saghatelyan and Narek Samsonyan, as well as the seizure of Antifake TV’s property (https://fom.coe.int/en/alerte/detail/107643293). However, the Armenian authorities took no action. Accordingly, Armenia is the 3rd member state of the Council of Europe by the number of Journalists and other media actors currently in detention.
The details and analysis of the case are available in the ACPR’s statements attached to this email.
We call to urgently review, within the scope of your mandates, the unlawful criminal prosecution and detention of podcasters Vazgen Saghatelyan and Narek Samsonyan. We further urge you to issue relevant messages to the Armenian authorities and draw their attention to this matter.
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