{"id":44833,"date":"2026-02-03T11:03:56","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T11:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/media.am\/?p=44833"},"modified":"2026-02-03T11:51:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T11:51:20","slug":"reports-of-lgbt-parade-in-yerevan-are-false","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/verified\/2026\/02\/03\/44833\/","title":{"rendered":"Reports Of LGBT+ Parade In Yerevan Are False"},"content":{"rendered":"

On January 31, the Turkish-language service of China’s global television network, CGTN T\u00dcRK, reported<\/a> that the LGBT+ community intends to organize a march in Yerevan on April 7, 2026. The article’s author, Okai Deprem, noted that the Armenian Prime Minister supports the “legalization of the movement.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRecently, there has been discussion that after many years, the LGBT+ community in the country [Armenia] is planning to hold a new march, a new rally\u2026 According to some rumors, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan also supports the legalization of the movement and its entry into the public arena, in the hope of receiving another ‘positive point’ from his beloved West,\u201d the journalist noted.<\/p>\n

The information was also circulated<\/span> in the Georgian media and republished by outlets including <\/span>rustavi2<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Imedi<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>POSTV News<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>INFO9<\/span><\/a> Prime Time<\/span><\/a> (archived<\/a>), as well as numerous other websites and Facebook pages.<\/span><\/p>\n

The claim is also being actively shared on X by accounts with large audiences (<\/span>1<\/span><\/a> 2<\/span><\/a> 3<\/span><\/a> 4<\/span><\/a> 5<\/span><\/a> 6<\/span><\/a>)<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

On Armenian Facebook, one of the first to share (<\/a>archived<\/a>)<\/a> the information was former National Assembly MP Armen Yeghiazaryan.<\/span><\/p>\n

The information is false<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan\u2019s press secretary, Nazeli Baghdasaryan, denied reports claiming that Pashinyan had approved an LGBT+ community parade. <\/span><\/p>\n

In a Facebook post<\/a> (archive<\/a>) and an interview with pastinfo.am<\/a>, she stated, “The allegations circulating in the media and on social networks that Prime Minister Pashinyan has approved the LGBT+ community parade in Yerevan on April 7 are not true.”<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, a significant number of the websites that disseminated the information relied on an article by Okay Deprem, who has repeatedly spread false information and has been listed on the Russian fakes<\/a> platform as a pro-Kremlin author.<\/span><\/p>\n

Deprem is a journalist with the Turkish media outlet ODA TV. In a YouTube video posted three years ago, Deprem claimed<\/a> to hold Luhansk citizenship and said he had previously lived in several countries, including Russia and Ukraine.<\/p>\n

As for ODA TV, it is known<\/a> for its involvement in the Russian “Storm-1516” disinformation campaign.<\/p>\n

More information about Turkish descent Okay Deprem’s activities can be found in this article<\/a> from the Fact Investigation Platform (FIP.am).<\/p>\n

The source<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Before the information appeared on the Chinese website, it had already been published on lgbtq-armenia.com<\/a>, which, accoriding to whois.com<\/a> was created just 11 days earlier, on January 22, 2026. <\/span><\/p>\n

The website announced that Armenia’s first-ever LGBT+ parade was scheduled to take place in Yerevan on April 7, 2026. It was noted that the parade had the support of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who planned to lead the march in person to defend human rights.<\/span><\/p>\n

The information was posted on this platform no later than January 26<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Screenshot from lgbtq-armenia.com website<\/p><\/div>\n

Aside from this publication, there is no additional content on the site. It consists solely of a single page featuring an image of Nikol Pashinyan, which was created using artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Screenshot from lgbtq-armenia.com website<\/p><\/div>\n

This is confirmed by the AI or Not artificial intelligence recognition tool.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Screenshot: AI or Not <\/p><\/div>\n

The other photo is real, but it was taken during a march in New York<\/a> in 2012.<\/p>\n

Consequently, the news about an LGBT+ parade planned for April 2026 in Yerevan is false and has been officially denied by the press secretary of the Prime Minister of Armenia. This rumor originated from a newly created suspicious website that used an artificial intelligence-generated image. Additionally, the claim was first made by Turkish journalist Okay Deprem, who has a history of spreading misinformation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On January 31, the Turkish-language service of China’s global television network, CGTN T\u00dcRK, reported that the LGBT+ community intends to organize a march in Yerevan on April 7, 2026. The article’s author, Okai Deprem, noted that the Armenian Prime Minister supports the “legalization of the movement.” \u201cRecently, there has been discussion that after many years, Read the full article…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":186,"featured_media":44851,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[212,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-post","category-verified","author_posts-ophelia-simonyan-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/186"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44833"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44853,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44833\/revisions\/44853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}