Aravot.am inquired from Ashot Melikyan, Chairman of Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression, how he estimates the recent statement of the police, according to which, interfering with journalists’ lawful professional activities at the State Economic University of Armenia is not justified. “The police have investigated the incident incompletely, I am sure about it, because if an independent expert looks, he will see that the journalists are not able to go to the hall, where they were supposed to implement their activities, particularly, to cover the defense of Taron Margaryan’s PhD thesis and they failed doing it. There is no other option than to prevent professional activity, especially when there is a video, we see the students’ impudent behavior, and the Rector does not rebuke the students. In short, we, some journalistic organizations, have stated our sentiments and estimates in our statements and we believe that this is a classic interference with the professional activities of the journalists,” said the Chairman of Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression. Recall that journalistic organizations, in their statement with regard to the incident at the University of Economics, have requested Yerevan Mayor, Taron Margaryan, to provide explanations regarding the incident; the RA Ministry of Education and Science to examine the issue of the Rector of the State University of Economics for complying in his position for involving the students in immoral action; the law enforcement agencies to bring the guilty of the incident to responsibility for impeding the lawful activities of journalists.
As for the part of the statement made by the police where it says about the offensive expressions to the journalists, and moving the matter to civil-legal relations, according to which, the matter is subject to solution by court order. With this regard, Mr. Melikyan said, “It can not only be a matter of civil law, if it comes to the prevention of journalistic activity, there is a clear Article for it in the Criminal Code, Article 164. The police shall be obligated to evaluate the incident in compliance with this Article. We believe that this once again shows that the police are simply signifying its other function, the function of defending the state official above all, and the rule of law is not always being implemented.”
Gohar HAKOBYAN
