Hundreds of his supporters clashed with security forces sent from Yerevan that day. More than 40 of them, including several officials from the municipal administration, were charged afterwards with participating in “mass disturbances.” Over two dozen of them remain under arrest.
The latest detainees are the acting head of the Gyumri municipality’s department on public utilities and an assistant to Ghukasian. The Investigative Committee also filed the same charges against the acting mayor of Armenia’s second largest city, Avetis Arakelian, and Ghukasian’s son Spartak. Arakelian was not arrested despite the indictment.
Spartak Ghukasian was technically under house arrest during the October 20 protests. He was taken into custody last month for allegedly insulting law-enforcement officials during his and his father’s ongoing trial stemming from a different criminal case.
Arakelian, who is also the jailed mayor’s son-in-law, said earlier this week that he may well be arrested too.
“We expect anything and we are ready for anything,” the acting mayor told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Gyumri’s new municipal council appointed Ghukasian as mayor in April this year after four opposition groups collectively defeated Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s party in a local election. Armenian opposition leaders say the crackdown on Ghukasian and his supporters is part of Pashinian’s intensifying efforts to stifle dissent ahead of next year’s general elections.
Dozens of other critics of the Armenian government, including another opposition mayor, three archbishops and a billionaire businessman, have also been arrested in recent months. The authorities deny that they are political prisoners.