Aramyan Armen Vardanovich

Armen Aramyan, editor-in-chief of the student journal DOXA, was charged in Moscow in May 2024 with publicly justifying terrorism and spreading 'fakes' about the Russian army motivated by political hatred. According to the investigation, on August 3, 2022, Aramyan, while outside the Russian Federation, acting out of political hatred, posted on the page of the magazine "DOXA" in one of the social networks a publication "containing under the guise of reliable information knowingly false information about the actions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of the LPR, DPR, and Ukraine during the special military operation." "13 January 2023, Armanyan posted on the website of the same online magazine a publication 'containing calls for arson of military commissariats and actions aimed at disrupting railway transport in the Russian Federation.'", Aramyan left Russia in August 2022 due to the persecution of the DOXA editorial office in a case of involving minors in activities dangerous to their lives. On September 18, 2024, the Basmanny District Court of Moscow issued an arrest warrant for the journalist in absentia. 27 February 2025, the 2nd Western District Military Court found Armen Aramyan guilty and sentenced him in absentia to 10 years and 1 month in prison to be served in a general regime penal colony. The court also deprived him of the right to administer websites and channels on the 'Internet' for 4 years. 21 May 2025, the Appellate Military Court left the sentence unchanged. According to the investigation, the journalists' crime consisted of posting a video titled "They Cannot Defeat Youth - An Appeal from the DOXA Editorial Team to Students and Schoolchildren" lasting 2 minutes and 37 seconds on January 22, 2021. In this video, they demanded that the authorities stop intimidating opposition-minded schoolchildren and students with expulsion and expressed their support for them. On September 18, 2024, the Basmanny District Court of Moscow placed in absentia Armen Arutyunov, co-founder of DOXA, under arrest. Armen Aramyan left Russia in the spring of 2022 shortly after the start of the war and the sentencing in the DOXA case. Arutyunyan and three other DOXA editors were then sentenced to two years of corrective labor for a video about intimidating students before rallies.