Former Soviet political prisoner Shahen Harutyunyan dies in U.S.

PanARMENIAN.Net - Former Soviet political prisoner Shahen Harutyunyan has died in the United States at the age of 84, his grandson Shahen Harutyunyan said in a Facebook post on Wednesday, September 8․

In the 1960s, Harutyunyan and a handful of friends began an independence movement and joined forces to establish the National United Party in 1966.

"The National United Party was the only anti-communist, pro-independence party in all of USSR. Members of the party were being identified and incarcerated. Nevertheless, the ideas of independence were spreading by the day, and not only among the Armenian people but also other peoples of the USSR," Harutyunyan's grandson said.

Harutyunyan was imprisoned twice throughout his life. And when his brother and son were in jail in 1985, he fled the country, settled in the United States and was stripped of Soviet citizenship the following year.