Rafael Aramashoti Papayan (Armenian: Ռաֆայել Արամաշոտի Պապայան; December 22, 1942 – October 5, 2010) was a philologist, political prisoner, human rights activist, writer and a judge on the Constitutional Court of Armenia.
[2] In 1964 he was removed from the Young Communist Union of Yerevan Brusov State University of Languages and Social Sciences due to a published article in the "Brusovets" student newspaper.
[6] In 1965 he graduated from the Yerevan Brusov State University of Languages and Social Sciences as a philologist.
He continued his studies in the University of Tartu from 1969 to 1972 under the guidance of the literary historian and semiotician, Juri Lotman.
He was one of the founders of the Armenian Helsinki Group in 1975, which discovered and published various human rights abuses within Soviet Armenia.
After documented evidence of the Soviet Union's violations were presented in the 1977 Belgrade Conference, Papayan and his colleague Edmond Avetyan’s apartments were searched.
On November 10, 1982, Papayan was arrested and charged under Article 65 of the Criminal Code of the Armenian SSR- anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.
[10] Papayan was joined by Georgi Khomizuri, Henrik Altunyan, Levan Berdzenishvili and many other intellectuals in the strict political prison camp.
[11][12] During his sentence he would use special fonts in his letters to transfer information to his friends outside of the prison camp.
He participated in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva in March 1990 to present a report on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
[20] Papayan was a member of the Supreme Spiritual Council of the Armenian Apostolic Church since 1991.
On August 15, 2003, Papayan was awarded the medal of St. Nerses Shnorhali by the Catholicos of All Armenians, Karekin II.