YEREVAN. – This is just a process taking place by [PM] Nikol Pashinyan's instruction. Narek Samsonyan, President of the "Civil Consciousness" NGO of Armenia who has been called to the Special Investigation Service (SIS) for questioning as an accused in the "black caviar" case, told this to reporters near the SIS building today.

Samsonyan had written on Facebook that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's family buys black caviar worth $5,000 from a restaurant every month. According to the SIS report, Samsonyan is charged with making a false statement.

"Pashinyan, in doing all this, has two goals: minimum and maximum," Samsonyan said. "The minimum is to hinder the activities of Antifake.am, and to say that 'whoever publishes the bad things done by our family,' that is, the luxuries made at the expense of the people, that person will be subjected to such persecution. The maximum goal is to isolate me, that I am isolated during that referendum [of constitutional amendments], the campaign.

“I am confident that neither the first nor the second will happen, because I declare that from now on we are ready to publish [the reports by] all the people who will have even little information, no matter how many people will be able to commit such violation against me and the site afterwards.”

Samsonyan noted that they would not allow Pashinyan to silence the press and curtail press freedom.

He added that they will not testify at the SIS.

Narek Samsonyan was summoned to the SIS earlier, too, after which he made a statement that his testimony was falsified by the investigator. The SIS then issued a counter-statement to this statement by Samsonyan.