Armenia's Selective Prosecutions Test Brussels' Pragmatic Approach to a Key Regional Partner

In early October, Artur Danielyan, leader of the Armenian opposition party Adekvad, was arrested over a Facebook post criticizing Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. The posts also took aim at the country's security services. The arrest has become the latest marker in what Armenian civil society describes as a pattern of selective justice.

The trigger was an argument over a possible prisoner exchange. An Azerbaijani soldier is jailed in Armenia, accused of breaking into the home of a 39-year-old woman in the village of Shaki and injuring her and her children. In an interview with the Armenian outlet Infocom, Pashinyan ruled out trading him for Armenians held in Azerbaijan. Danielyan answered by calling the prime minister a "scumbag" and accusing him of being unwilling to bring his fellow citizens home.

The issue is raw. Armenia and Azerbaijan fought for three decades over Nagorno-Karabakh, a breakaway region populated by Armenians that declared independence in the 1990s. After Azerbaijan's 2023 military offensive, Baku regained control and more than 100,000 Armenians fled. Nineteen Armenians are now detained in Baku, among them former senior officials of the region's de facto administration.

More than a dozen Armenian civil society organizations condemned the case against Danielyan in a joint statement, calling it "patently illegal, disproportionate, and politically motivated." They wrote that it is punitive in nature and sends the public a direct signal meant to silence dissent, critical views and undesirable speech.

He is not the only one. Several criminal proceedings have been opened against activists who criticized the ruling establishment or Pashinyan. Before the June parliamentary elections, Artur Osipyan, an activist displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh, was arrested after a verbal clash with Pashinyan over his Karabakh policy. Prosecutors indicted him for disrupting public order and obstructing the ruling party's campaign, and also charged him with inciting violence against Pashinyan in a social media post from March.

The legal footing has a history. On April 15, 2020, Article 226.2 was added to Armenia's Criminal Code, penalizing public calls to violence and the public justification or promotion of violence. After strong outrage from civil society, those offenses were later decriminalized. A 2025 Freedom House report found that nearly 95 percent of court cases on incitement to violence under the 2020 amendment involved alleged threats against Pashinyan and his supporters, while statements by ruling party members that might have been prohibited apparently did not draw the same scrutiny.

The imbalance, critics say, runs the other way too. Throughout the 2026 pre-election period, the Regional Center for Democracy and Security, an independent Yerevan think tank, monitored online hate speech aimed at Karabakh refugees. Its reports documented pro-government bloggers and influential users directing hostile rhetoric at displaced Karabakh Armenians and labeling them with derogatory terms. Law enforcement largely declined to prosecute them.

Brussels has said little. Observers in Yerevan told DW that the EU has given no clear response, even as Armenia deepens its ties with Europe. Political analyst Tigran Grigoryan called the approach "very pragmatic and geopolitically driven." He said that with events in Georgia, Armenia has become the EU's primary partner in the region, and that because the alternative to Pashinyan is a pro-Russian opposition, there is no serious response to the cases. Stefan Meister of the German Council on Foreign Relations agreed that European support is mainly driven by Russia policy, and said Pashinyan uses this to label opponents Russian proxies, though not every critic is pro-Russian. In his view, the EU is falling into that trap.

An EU spokesperson, answering DW in writing, said democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights are central to the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement and the Strategic Agenda. The EU is closely following developments, including criminal investigations, which should be independent and impartial, free from political considerations. Whether Brussels goes beyond that general language, and whether such prosecutions widen before the next elections, is what to watch.