Armenia's selective prosecution: A threat to EU relations?

While Brussels has refrained from harsh criticism, Armenian civil society has warned of selective justice against opposition figures. Could the EU's pragmatic stance risk repeating past mistakes? In early October, Artur Danielyan, leader of Armenia's opposition party Adekvad, was arrested following a Facebook post criticizing Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan .

The incident is part of a growing trend: Over the past two years, Armenian authorities have brought charges against multiple opposition figures, largely based on their social media activity. The grounds for Danielyan's detention were Facebook posts in which he criticized both Pashinyan and the country's security services. One point of contention was Pashinyan's stance on a possible prisoner exchange involving an Azerbaijani soldier accused of breaking into the home of a 39-year-old woman in the Armenian village of Shaki and injuring her and her children.

In an interview with Armenian news outlet Infocom, Pashinyan ruled out swapping the soldier imprisoned in Armenia for detained Armenians in Azerbaijan.