Mr. Arshak Banuchyan, Deputy Director of the Matenadaran, has been arrested. Mr. Banuchyan is responsible for the Ancient Manuscript Depository’s Division of External Relations. He is also the Founding President of the “Friends of the Matenadaran” charitable organization. He has been accused of “participating in the mass public disorders” of March 1st. Sona Truzyan, Press Secretary at the Public Prosecutor’s office, made a statement to this effect on March 25th.

On March 24th, law enforcement officials conducted an exhaustive search of Mr. Banuchyan’s apartment. After the search they confiscated his computers, memory disks and his daughter’s camera. The Deputy Director requested that he be present when they searched through his computer files since they contained extensive information of a professional and cultural nature. The police promised that they would only go through the files in his presence since he was being taken into custody as well, either voluntarily or forcibly. It was only ten hours later that Mr. Banuchyan was able to telephone home to say that he was in pretrial detention.

In the words of his defense attorney, Stepan Voskanyan, the Prosecutor asked Mr. Banuchyan questions regarding payments of large sums of money to certain individuals to guarantee their presence at the public rallies.

Matenadaran Director Hrachya Tamrazyan stated that, “Banuchyan is a sensible, learned professional. I can’t pass final judgment but I’d say that his arrest stems from his political views. In general, I consider these mass arrests to be flawed since they merely serve to intensify the cleavages in our society. Such actions have a profound effect on the young generation, leading to disappointment and disillusionment.”

Mr. Tamrazyan believes that immediate measures must be enacted to extricate ourselves from the current situation. “And I believe that the government holds the keys to the solution.”

The Matenadaran Director is also confident that the absurd accusations levied against his colleague Mr. Banuchyan will soon be dropped. 

Mr. Banuchyan is a supporter of  Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Armenia’s first president. During his presidency Mr. Banuchyan held a variety of top official posts, including Head of the Youth Affairs Department at the Ministry of Culture. He started working at the Matenadaran at the age of 16 and has particularly been involved in the Depository’s publishing activities and in increasing the number of manuscripts for its collection. It was through his tireless work, in conjunction with benefactors in the Moscow Armenian community, that the “Mogats Gospel” was returned to Armenia.