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Political prisoner Narek Samsonyan, a co-host of the Imnemnimi podcast, addressed the people from Armavir State Penitentiary. Below is his message published by AntiFake.am.

“Dear friends, like-minded fellow Armenians, decent people who are concerned about us.

As expected, the government of the cowardly Mankurts could not resist the temptation and arrested us, Vazgen Saghatelyan and me. Arrested for media activity - civil and political stance, free speech, arrested for expressing opinion and saying things that are public truth. All this was expected, but no matter how expected it was, the article brought forward as a flimsy pretext to silence us was from the surreal genre; group hooliganism with the obligatory component of disturbing people's peace. Two investigators and a prosecutor decided that calling the nation’s hangmen by his real name disturbed the peace of the public. Naturally, the investigators and the prosecutor together with the two judges clearly realized that Nicole is what we described, and that the criminal prosecution has political motives and is of a legal absurdity genre. Nevertheless, they did what Nicole dictated them to do. They did that dirty deed, as a result, Vazgen and I are in Armavir State Penitentiary today.

As you can see, our voice has not been silenced by this pathetic move. Our podcast, “Imnemnimi” will continue to air thanks to our friends, supporters and our powerful work team. During all upcoming episodes of “Imnemnimi” our voice will be heard even louder. This, of course, was also clear to the traitor-in-chief and his disastrous cohort.

The Nicole regime pursued at least two main goals by baseless accusations and lawlessly exacting demonstrative revenge on us for free speech:

1. To intimidate and silence the rest by showing our example; to keep the wider masses from fighting for the sake of their own ideas and existential needs.

2. To take a revenge on Vazgen and me together with our families in a pusillanimous way by depriving us from our freedom thus trying to break us. Causing discomfort and mental anguish to our friends and families.

It is my deepest belief, that by imprisoning us the scoundrel surrenderer tried to achieve at least these two goals.

Our task is as follows: to disrupt his plan.

If in the case of its second goal, our personal characteristics (consciously choosing this path) and explicit public support play a major role, in the case of its first goal, the Nicole regime hopes for intimidating vast masses. That would be feasible only if there is a slight step back from the narratives or actions to oppose the regime policies among public figures. The Nicole regime and Nicolism are subjects of a separate piece of writing (I’m sure I’ll have enough time to do it).

It is seen with the naked eye that the fight against the regime, in its essence and structure, inevitably requires a different, a new level of effort, because the political existence of Nicole administration poses a serious threat to the existence of our country.

Regarding the second goal, Vazgen and I together with our families were prepared for such a development and, of course, we clearly realized that we would end up in prison at some stage of the struggle against this destructive regime, as this hostile regime has no toolkit other than repressions, blackmail and lies as a means to remain on power. In this context, I am sure that the public support of our friends and supporters has had a major positive impact in the past few days, for which I thank everyone.

P.S 1 I learned many people were angered by the footage of my arrest. Dear friends, your acrimony is natural, and is no less annoying for me, but let me tell you something comforting; each and every member of that uniformed gang of hooligans will be punished for his behavior in the near future within the framework of the philosophy of inevitability of punishment. I promised them that too and I’m also sure that the day my promise would be fulfilled is not far away.

P.S. 2 Our Podcast will continue to air. I’m asking all of you, especially our regular supporters to be even more active than usual by subscribing, sharing, commenting, donating and supporting in other ways. I'm sure one day we'll kick off the Podcast again with our distinctive 'good evenings'.''

Narek Samsonyan

Armavir State Penitentiary

25.03.2024