By Gayane Saribekian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — A coalition of Western press freedom groups has for the first time included Armenia on its list of countries in wider Europe jailing journalists or other media figures.
As part of an annual report released on Tuesday, March 3, the Platform for the Safety of Journalists also blacklisted neighboring Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia as well as Russia and Belarus. The platform consists of 15 watchdogs, including the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists and Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, cooperating with the Council of Europe.
“At the end of 2025, Armenia was recorded for the first time on the Platform with journalists or other media actors in detention, following the pre-trial detention of podcasters Vazgen Saghatelyan and Narek Samsonyan on hooliganism charges,” says its report.
Samsonyan and Saghatelyan are currently standing trial for verbally abusing parliament speaker Alen Simonyan in response to his personal insults. Simonyan branded the two outspoken men as “sons of b*tches” when he commented on their seven-hour interview with former President Serzh Sargsyan broadcast live on YouTube in early November. They responded to him with offensive language.
Simonyan demanded criminal proceedings against them on November 11. Two days later, officers of Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) demonstratively detained the two podcasters, searching their homes and their Imnemnimi podcast studio in the process. No action was taken against Simonyan, who is a leading political ally of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, notorious for spitting at a heckler in Yerevan in 2023.
