Garen Megerdichian, a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) party, shouted the insult at Simonian as the latter visited a popular pedestrian area in downtown Yerevan.
Megerdichian claimed that Simonian responded by ordering his bodyguards to grab his hands before swearing at him and spitting in his face. He said he was then briefly detained by police.
Simonian did not deny spitting at the Canadian-born activist highly critical of Armenia’s government when he commented on the incident later on Sunday. In a Facebook post, he said that Megerdichian already publicly insulted him earlier this year.
“I ignored him during the first incident a month ago. During the second one, I countered his right to free speech and insults with my opinion about him and my freedom,” he wrote, adding that anyone offending the Armenian authorities will get a “legal response.”
Speaking to 1in.am on Monday, Simonian claimed that his bodyguards caught the heckler “so that he doesn’t attack me.” He refused to speak to other media outlets.
Opposition lawmakers condemned the speaker and demanded criminal proceedings against him, saying that his alleged behavior amounted to “hooliganism,” a criminal offense in Armenia.
Ishkhan Saghatelian, a Dashnaktsutyun leader, shrugged off Simonian’s remark that he is a “Yerevan guy” from whom oppositionists “will always run away.”
“As far as I know, good fellows of Yerevan and real men in general don’t behave like that,” he told journalists.
Saghatelian also defended Megerdichian. “This is a fight between patriots and people who say we can live without a homeland,” he said.
Two other opposition lawmakers visited Megerdichian in police custody and warned law-enforcement authorities against prosecuting him.
As of Monday evening the authorities did not say whether they will launch a formal investigation into the incident.
Simonian, who is a senior member of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, is no stranger to controversy. In 2020 he brawled with an outspoken anti-government activist who insulted him on a street in Yerevan.
In late 2021, Simonian angered the families of Armenian soldiers taken prisoner during the 2020 war with Azerbaijan. He was caught on camera labeling many of those POWs as deserters who “laid down their weapons and ran away” during fighting with Azerbaijani forces.
A few weeks later, he reportedly told journalists that they must stand up every time they see him in the parliament building. Simonian imposed unprecedented restrictions on press coverage of the National Assembly immediately after becoming its speaker in August 2021.
