Big Brother is Watching You: Surveillance, Leaks, and Democratic Backsliding
27.10.2025
By Tigran Grigoryan
On May 30, at the very beginning of the current phase of confrontation between the Armenian Apostolic Church and the country’s ruling party, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan made his infamous Facebook post: “Reverend, go on and keep banging your uncle’s wife – what do you want from me?”
What initially seemed like a worrying verbal attack by the prime minister – marked by elements of sexism and violation of privacy – soon evolved into a large-scale campaign against the Church through the weaponization of law enforcement and the judicial system.
Pashinyan’s vulgar Facebook post took on new significance on October 24, when a Telegram channel named “Armenian WikiLeaks” published several short videos allegedly showing Archbishop Arshak Khachatryan, Chancellor of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, in intimate situations with a woman. The videos, filmed in a bathroom and a living room, were accompanied by a claim that the woman was the archbishop’s uncle’s wife.
Following the publication, several ruling party–aligned websites and pro-government bloggers began spreading the footage. They also attempted to portray the leak as the result of internal Church rivalries – a claim that appears dubious, given that the prime minister himself had referred to this compromising material in the above-mentioned Facebook post, and that only state security agencies have the capacity to carry out such covert surveillance operations.
The pattern of how this material was disseminated mirrors a model identified in a recent CivilNet investigation into other cases of illegal surveillance and their publication. That report examined two recent incidents in which private phone conversations – one involving clergymen and another involving individuals associated with Samvel Karapetyan’s “Our Way” movement – were made public. The investigation revealed that one recording first appeared on an anonymous Telegram channel spreading pro-government and anti-opposition content, and was quickly amplified by ruling party–controlled media outlets. In the second case, the audio was initially released on the YouTube channel of the government-affiliated outlet MediaNews, then widely circulated by other loyal media. These illegally obtained recordings later served as grounds for opening criminal cases based on the conversations’ alleged content.
According to Armenian law, surveillance and wiretapping not authorized by a court cannot be used in criminal proceedings. However, once such recordings are leaked to the media, they can serve as a pretext for launching criminal investigations. This mechanism effectively allows authorities to circumvent legal restrictions in politically motivated cases.
Notably, a recent report by the Regional Center for Democracy and Security on hate speech against Nagorno-Karabakh refugees identified the same mechanism and the same actors involved in spreading disinformation and hate speech against displaced persons.
It now appears that this very mechanism was once again employed in the case of the leaked surveillance videos of Archbishop Arshak Khachatryan. Taken together – Pashinyan’s months-old Facebook post, the capabilities required for such surveillance, and the familiar pattern of dissemination – these factors leave little doubt about who stands behind this and previous leaks of compromising materials targeting Church and opposition figures.
The publication of the video has sparked a strong public backlash. Artur Papyan, president of the Yerevan Press Club and a leading media expert, emphasized that violating someone’s privacy or publishing secret recordings can never be justified – whether for political, public, or personal reasons – as it undermines trust, weakens institutions, and degrades human dignity. He added that such actions not only breach ethical norms but also violate Armenia’s constitution, laws, and international obligations, contradicting the very foundations of democracy.
Media expert Samvel Martirosyan likewise stressed that secretly recording someone’s private life or spreading such recordings is a crime.
These and previous episodes of illegal surveillance and the use of compromising materials against government critics and opponents represent yet another alarming trend in Armenia’s ongoing democratic backsliding. The deliberate blurring of the boundary between private and public life bodes ill for the state of political freedoms and civil liberties in the country. The absence of a strong and unified response from civil society and the international community risks normalizing these practices – and allowing them to be used against a growing range of actors in the future.
Democracy Watch is a joint initiative by CivilNet and the Regional Center for Democracy and Security, a Yerevan-based think tank.
This material has been funded by UK International Development from the UK government; however, the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK government’s official policies.