Ex-nationalist Armenian "Dashnak" leader arrested in France

Parisian Police have arrested the former Head of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation’s youth branch (ARF-D), better known as Dashnaktsutyun or Dashnaks for short, Loris Tufanyan.

As Caliber.Az reports, this was published on Twitter by Maxime Gauin, a French historian and expert on Turkish-Armenian relations, who argued that “the arrest is likely due to a violent demonstration against the Azerbaijani embassy's cultural centre”.

Throughout the past months, there have been multiple attempts to attack buildings belonging to Azerbaijan’s diplomatic representative structures in Paris, including attacks on the Cultural Center and the Embassy. 

Tufanyan was one of the founders of the “Charjoum” movement in 2015, a dissident group of ethnic Armenians residing in France.

The Dashnaks are a nationalist political party, largely active in countries where large Armenian communities exist while having a weak following inside Armenia itself. This stems from their views being heavily influenced by Armenian diaspora leaders from France and the USA, advocating mainly around the idea of establishing a “United Armenia” by forcibly annexing neighbouring territories from Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey, convinced in their belief that the Armenian people have some sort of a historic claim on those areas.

This morning, the Parisian police arrested Loris Toufanian, former chair of the ARF's youth branch in France, who co-established the dissident group Charjoum in 2015. The arrest is likely due to a violent demonstration against the Azerbaijani embassy's cultural center. pic.twitter.com/JegoydRCF5

— Maxime Gauin 🇫🇷 🇺🇦 🇪🇺 (@MaximeGauin) October 19, 2022