Armenia and the West’s double standards Can Pashinyan get away with anything?

The events unfolding in Armenia clearly point to the depth of the country’s internal political crisis. Increasingly, Armenian media and social media users are voicing the idea that life today is devoid of meaning—suggesting that having to choose the lesser of two evils is, in itself, proof of Armenia’s collapse as a functioning state. Indeed, the current Armenian leadership, led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, is taking actions which—if they had occurred in any other post-Soviet country—would have triggered a wave of criticism from numerous Western institutions and human rights organisations.

We are far from attempting to assess the domestic political moves of the Armenian authorities on a “right or wrong” scale, but the obvious cannot be denied: the conflict between Pashinyan and the Armenian Church has split an already fragmented Armenian society even further. The public and open confrontation between the Prime Minister and Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II reached its climax after Armenia’s Investigative Committee announced that members and leaders of the “Holy Struggle” movement had allegedly been planning terrorist acts and actions aimed at seizing power in the country.

"Vazgen Galstanyan, having failed over the course of several months to achieve the goal set by the movement called Holy Struggle,' which he initiated and leads—namely, the seizure of power in the Republic of Armenia through legal means permitted by the Constitution of the RA—decided, as of November 2024, to pursue this goal by means not provided for in the Constitution. To this end, in prior collusion with a number of participants in the movement and acting as part of a group, he acquired the necessary means and tools to carry out terrorist acts and seize power, and deliberately created other conditions, thereby preparing for a violent takeover of power," the statement by the Investigative Committee of Armenia reads.

Then followed the detention and arrest of Bagrat-Vazgen Galstanyan and dozens of clergy from the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC). Today, Armenia’s National Security Service entered the residence of the Catholicos of All Armenians in Etchmiadzin. Reports are also emerging that employees of Russian corporations such as South Caucasus Railway (SCR), Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA), and Gazprom are being coerced into going to Etchmiadzin to create the illusion of a mass protest and public outrage. But that’s not all.

This week, Prime Minister Pashinyan posted recordings of leaders and participants of the “Sacred Struggle” movement on his Facebook page and commented: “How did the ‘holy’ one paralyse the state governance system of the Republic of Armenia? Naturally, with the blessing of Ktrich and the support of Samo.”

As we can see, he is referring to the Catholicos and the Russian-Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetyan, who supported him. At the same time, Pashinyan did not wait for a court ruling. In effect, he is openly pressuring the judiciary by prematurely portraying Garegin II and oligarch Samvel Karapetyan as individuals whose guilt in the serious charges brought against them has already been proven. In other words, this is a clear example of a power struggle between two competing centres, with Pashinyan behaving—as some Armenian media outlets have already noted—like a dictator.

Strangely enough, despite all this, numerous Western institutions and human rights organisations remain conspicuously silent. Even when far less serious events occur, they are usually quick to line up and criticise Azerbaijan. So why the silence when it comes to what’s happening in Armenia? Where is the outrage from official Paris and Brussels? Where are the hysterical outbursts from members of the European Parliament and the various “human rights organisations” — from Freedom House to Human Rights Watch?

In Armenia, among other things, former Education Minister Armen Ashotyan has been imprisoned, criminal cases have been launched against political opponents of Pashinyan, and Russian-Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetyan is being criminally prosecuted. He is, incidentally, the subject of a criminal case that looks more like an act of economic retribution disguised as “nationalisation.”

This raises a perfectly valid question: why is European integrity so selective? And the answer is clear — it’s the notorious double standards and moral duplicity that have become the West’s defining brand.