YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — A brawl broke out Tuesday in Armenia’s National Assembly involving an opposition lawmaker who later was stripped of his parliamentary immunity and faces prosecution for calling for ousting President Nikol Pashinyan as political tensions flared in the South Caucasus country.
Artur Sargsyan, who represents the opposition bloc Armenia, had finished a speech in which he said the case against him had been decided ahead of time and tried to leave the chamber. Other lawmakers then moved to stop him, and security guards flooded in, according to video from news outlets.
In his speech, Sargsyan said Armenia had become “a bastion of dictatorship” where “everything is decided in advance, written down, approved.”
Lawmakers later voted to strip Sargsyan of his parliamentary immunity, opening him up to prosecution. He turned himself in to Armenia’s Investigative Committee, which had accused him and 15 others of plotting to overthrow the government.
Pashinyan’s government has been cracking down on political opponents he has said are trying to engineer a coup.
Various members of the opposition, including the influential Armenian Apostolic Church, have been leading demonstrations urging Pashinyan’s ouster after he agreed to territorial concessions in the country’s decades-long battle with neighboring Azerbaijan for control of disputed regions.
Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan and Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, both senior church leaders, are in pre-trial detention after being accused of taking part in the alleged plot.
On June 28, crowds of supporters gathered at church headquarters ou …