Today, the Criminal Court of Appeal refused “A1 +” TV report Marine Khachatryan’s and her representatives’ appeal. The court found that the first-instance judicial act is lawful. In an interview with Aravot.am, “A1 +” TV Company Director Mesrop Movsisyan expressed an opinion that given the judicial-legal system, this decision was predictable. He also informed that the decision will be appealed to the Court of Cassation. Note that the journalist demands to reverse the act of the Court of General Jurisdiction of Arabkir and Qanaker-Zeytun Communities of Yerevan city and oblige the investigation authority to continue investigating the case pertaining to the incident happened on September 9 last year at the NA courtyard.
Note that when covering the protest of “Counterstrike” artgroup, the Head of the NA Security Service Karen Hayrapetyan hit the “A1 +” journalist’s head and dropped the video device (iPad) onto the ground. He tried to hit one more time, simply he overlooked. The SIS investigator decided to discontinue the case due to the absence of corpus delicti. To our question of what such approach towards the journalist and the media indicate, Mr. Movsisyan repolied, “The atmosphere of impunity continues because since anyone is not punished for this, it will already serve as an example for others that they can treat the journalists in this way.”
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To the observation of whether such an attitude against the journalists does not turn into a politics by the connivance of the authorities, Mr. Movsisyan agreed and explained, “It was an obvious violation of the law, an evident prevention, hooliganism that was ignored by the court.” To the question of whether this is also a threat to free expression, whether there is fear that after similar events the journalists will become more cautious, “A1 +” Director replied, “This is just what they want for our journalists to be more cautious, scared and constrained. But the journalists clearly understand that this is a politics. The journalists should raise such cases loud and make the leadership be sober.”
According to Mr. Movsisyan, such cases also contradict the statements of the authorities that the media in our country is free and there is a trend to positive development. He concluded, “I would not like to see it all as a democratic country development scenery. But these trials result just it. On the one hand, they shout and yell that the media in our country is one of the freest, on the other hand, these events indicate that the atmosphere of intimidation is on. Thereby, it hampers the freedom of expression.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
