Aregnaz Manukyan, a board member of the opposition Mother Armenia party, has denied any wrongdoing and said prosecutors’ request to place her in pretrial detention is unsupported by evidence, according to a statement released through her lawyers from Abovyan Penitentiary on Thursday.
Attorneys Tatev Soghoyan and Hovhannes Khudoyan said they assumed Manukyan’s defense on Wednesday and visited her later that day at the detention facility. Soghoyan said Manukyan remained in good spirits.
In her message, Manukyan rejected the charges against her, calling them fabricated and politically motivated.
“I have committed no crime,” Manukyan said. “I have done nothing for which I should bear legal or even moral responsibility. I have done nothing against my homeland or my state, regardless of the fanciful assumptions contained in the fabricated charges against me.”
Referring to the case against her, Manukyan said the allegation involving state secrets may have left some people uncertain but expressed confidence that “time and the facts” would establish her innocence.
She thanked those who had publicly supported her and those advocating for political prisoners in Armenia.
“The motion seeking my detention contains absolutely no factual basis,” Manukyan said. “It is based entirely on assumptions and imagination.”
Manukyan also said she has been held in complete isolation and has been denied the opportunity to speak by telephone with her 13-year-old daughter and 85-year-old mother. She described the restrictions as inhumane but unsurprising given politically motivated proceedings.
She also questioned why the authorities detained her roughly six weeks after fellow opposition figure Andranik Tevanyan, despite both being charged in the same criminal case.
“Why was I arrested only on July 9, when nothing about me was unknown on May 23?” she asked, adding that she would address the issue in greater detail at a later stage.
Manukyan said she wanted to reassure her family and supporters that she remained mentally resilient and physically well.
The statement concluded with calls for the release of political prisoners and for “freedom for the Republic of Armenia.”
