www.aravot.am has talked about the persecutions against blogger Hovhannes Ishkhanyan for his book The Day of Discharge many times. Particularly, the law-enforcement agencies tried to censor the work of the young blogger, to summon Hovhannes to the military police for interrogation etc. www.aravot.am inquired from Human Rights Defender Karen Andreasyan whether he found what had happened to H. Ishkhanyan a violation o f human rights. The defender responded, “We have our position on all persecutions for any fictions, in this case, in particular – we don’t see any legal grounds for persecution. This can be assessed by us as censorship in the future, but I cannot make comments today, since we have got an application made by Hovhannes Ishkhanyan and the case is in progress.”
The Human Rights Defender, mentioning that they were actively following that case, expressed an opinion at the same time, “I can say in advance that we strongly condemn any attempt to censor fictions in any way and perceive it as a serious restraint of the right to freedom of speech.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
