Armenian Government Critic Dies During Trial

“He never let us speak up about those problems in the court and other bodies,” Melikyan said, speaking at an opposition rally in Yerevan held in the evening.

Organizers and participants of the rally observed a minute of silence in memory of Grigoryan. Some of them also held his pictures.

Opposition leaders addressing the crowd blamed the authorities and Pashinyan in particular for the outspoken public figure’s death.

“Armen Grigoryan died at the hands of these authorities with the direct participation of the investigator, the judge and the prosecutor acting on their orders,” one of them, Ishkhan Saghatelyan, charged.

The demonstrators chanted “Nikol murderer!” as they marched to the prime minister’s office and a Yerevan court that sanctioned Grigoryan’s arrest in May. Many of them lit candles and laid flowers outside the court building.

Over the past year, the opposition has regularly accused Pashinyan’s administration of weaponizing pre-trial arrests to try to neutralize its members and supporters fighting for regime change.

More than two dozen such individuals are currently under arrest on charges stemming from the ongoing anti-government protests. Most of them are accused of assaulting riot police. The authorities maintain that the accusations are not politically motivated.