Hunger Strike Day 9. Regarding Health Issues. Political Prisoner Narek Samsonyan
Warm greetings from "Armavir" Penitentiary. I was informed that my defense attorney, Ruben Melikyan, has already reported on my health issues, and I would like to provide some details on the situation. First, before we were illegally deprived of our liberty in December of last year, I had a scheduled surgery that had been planned as far back as September-October.
Since the regime arrested me for the word "buttocks," the surgery did not take place. Prison conditions further worsened the situation, and we were forced to apply for my treating physician to visit "Armavir" Penitentiary. We wrote that request on January 5th, and on the 7th day of the hunger strike I declared following the illegal extension of my imprisonment, the doctor finally had the opportunity to visit and examine me. In other words, only 10 days after filing the request was the doctor allowed to see me. Now, after the doctor has indicated the need for urgent surgical intervention, the same service is putting forward incomprehensible demands, stating that this indication can be implemented in a minimum of 10 days.
That is to say, they are holding me in captivity without the presence of a corpus delicti (elements of a crime); the higher court states that I was detained illegally, yet after that, they extend the term of captivity for another 3 months via a new illegal decision. After that, I have no choice but to express my protest through a hunger strike. Then, they transfer me—a hunger striker—to a punishment cell (solitary confinement), and now they say: "We cannot transfer you [for surgery] sooner than 10 days; that is the procedure." Now imagine the degree of the immoral, criminal regime we are dealing with.
One of the goals of my hunger strike was precisely to show all of this to the widest possible masses. Not to those who have gone through the crucible of struggle since 2018 or those who have felt the regime's inhumane nature on their own skin, but to those who have always "stayed away from politics." I wanted to force open the closed eyes of the international community to all of this, which the AntiFake.am team has been doing during this time with the active support of prominent political and public figures. We have now reached the absolute bottom, where the inhumanity of this government is an established fact, and surely, in the coming days, it will sink even lower than rock bottom.
Now, regarding those responsible for all this: I am more than confident that neither the leadership of "Armavir" Penitentiary nor the leadership of the "Penitentiary Medical Center" SNCO are interested in this; they may even be compassionate. However, those individuals who allow illegalities to occur will bear personal responsibility for all this in the future. By the same token, there are surely virtuous people who respect their profession within the Prosecutor's Office, the judicial system, and the Investigative Committee. But those who have wallowed in the duty of carrying out political persecution and the regime's orders will undoubtedly be punished for it in the future.
I continue to look at all of this with a smirk, and frankly, I am certain that there are still new "surprises" ahead. I await these surprises, as the list of individuals personally responsible for all this continues to grow. There is nothing left to say about those who ordered this; what needed to be said has been said. But, as they say, the client of the Soviet repressions was Stalin, yet who were the ones writing so many denunciations?
P.S. On the 9th day of the hunger strike, no representative of any state body has visited me. The Human Rights Defender has not visited—despite the fact that I do not even expect them, in the case of the Human Rights Defender, it was a duty.
Stay well, and freedom to all political prisoners.
Determination, Sacrifice, Victory!
Hunger striking political prisoner Narek Samsonyan
Day 9 of hunger strike
Day 65 of illegal imprisonment
"Armavir" Penitentiary, Punishment Cell N6
17.01.2026
