Blogger Hovhannes Ishkhanyan has been summoned by the military police for his book The Day of Discharge recently and today by the police. Hovhannes and his counselor Robert Revazyan told about this during a conversation with www.aravot.am. “Hovhannes was summoned by the military police on the phone. When we came, they gave us a writ, which read that it was necessary to give a written explanation of some events pointed out in the stories The Day of Discharge, the author of which he was. No case is opened yet, but presumably it will be opened. We don’t think it is normal, they basically censor belletristic literature. There are many books, which picture more sexually suggestive scenes, but they don’t prosecute for that,” Robert Revazyan expressed his surprise.
Hovhannes Ishkhanyan told, “They summoned me to the investigation unit of the Kentron police station today, a few weeks ago they summoned me to the military police. In both cases, the subject was that it was a fiction, the characters were imaginary, I wrote such an explanation.” Hovhannes Ishkhanyan and his counselor perceive what happened as censorship. Hovhannes added that he had had no problems in the army. Since the police sent a letter to the Cultural Values Research Center state nonprofit organization to get an expertise about Hovhannes Ishkhanyan’s book published in 2011, we asked for a comment from director of the nonprofit organization Shoghik Asoyan. Ms. Asoyan stated that according to a set of Cabinet decisions, their institution was entitled to make such an examination and they were going to give an answer to the law-enforcement agency in written. “The Cabinet has pointed out the standards and fields, in which we must make examinations. In case of censorship, it refers to ancient literature, written literary heritage. We are also entitled to make examinations on 75-year-old books,” the professional communicated to www.aravot.am.
We talked also with Vigen Mesropyan, the deputy chief of the investigation unit of Kentron community in Yerevan, Main Investigation Department of the Police. He said that he was not aware of the issue and no evidence had been collected in their unit about that case.
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Gohar HAKOBYAN
