A court has ordered Aregnaz Manukyan, a member of the Mother Armenia party’s governing board, into pretrial detention for two months.
Manukyan was detained after authorities accused her of disclosing information containing state secrets, allegations her supporters reject as politically motivated. Her attorney, Tirayr Karapetyan, told Sputnik Armenia that the defense will appeal the ruling through all available legal avenues.
Manukyan has become the latest female political prisoner in Armenia.
She joins Lidya Mantashyan, who became the country’s first female political prisoner in the current wave of politically motivated prosecutions after being arrested in June 2025 as part of the case against Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan and 17 others. Mantashyan spent five months in pretrial detention before the court replaced her detention with administrative supervision and bail in November.
The prosecutions of both women come amid an unprecedented crackdown on opposition figures, clergy, elected officials, and government critics.
With Manukyan’s detention, Armenia now has more than 60 political prisoners, including senior clergy, philanthropists, elected mayors, opposition politicians, and parents of fallen soldiers.
