YEREVAN (Panorama.am) — The travel ban on Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II on Monday, February 16 prompted angry responses from many people in Armenia and beyond.
Attorney Robert Amsterdam issued a statement calling Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan an “autocrat” for the travel ban.
“Armenia’s Prime Minister, Niko! Pashinyan, has spent months publicly denigrating and attacking Karekin II, the Catholicos. The Armenian state has been rounding up clergy and the church’s high-profile supporters, as well as confiscating assets. Many of Armenia’s bishops have been arrested by the authorities. Pashinyan has also said that he intends to seize control of Armenia’s largest religious organization, something that violates Article 17 of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia,” his statement noted.
Amsterdam is a lawyer for Samvel Karapetyan, a Russian-Armenian oligarch who himself has been imprisoned by the government. Karapetyan has been outspoken in his support for Catholicos Karekin II.
Amsterdam, founder and Managing Partner of Amsterdam & Partners LLP, added, “Pashinyan defines the term awkward autocrat in an attempt to change Armenian and European law to suit his paranoid insecurity. He is trying to threaten the legitimacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church. An Apostolic Church is based on leadership which forms a continuous line from the early Apostles. Only the Bolsheviks mirrored his behavior. The silence of Europe and the West is shameful and the fact that Armenia holds Christian prisoners as well as those in Baku is an embarrassment and a stain on this great country. Now is the moment for the West and the Armenian people to defend the values of freedom of religion and conscience.”
In Washington, the Armenian National Congress (ANC) voiced strong support for the Armenian Apostolic Church and denounced the repression against its leadership.
