On Friday, a part of the public criticized the press conference in the territory of the RA police patrol-sentry service regiment by calling it a show. In the Facebook “Media Literacy” group, Karen Vrtanesyan posted the following comment: “With this post I do not want to talk about today’s media show, I will rather talk about an issue, which would be a topic of a Military World if the events had occurred in another country. But since it is in Armenia and refers to the journalists, then I am writing in this group. Also, I would avoid using the word “terrorist” not to deviate the theme by pointless terminological disputes. I consider today’s press conference very dangerous and also an irresponsible event by the organizers. Even if we put aside the fact that one of the militants at the end started shooting in the air… My concern is not a “Kikos death” because at least some of the militants judging by these photos have no experience in handling with weapons. The most basic law of handling with a weapon: DO NOT PUT YOUR FINGER ON THE TRIGGER. The boy with a gun in his hand, if you can see, is just doing it. While in the photo with the automatic gun, as you can see, the automatic safety lock is open, in other words, slightly touching the trigger, it can fire. Generally, there are clear rules and procedures on what cannot be done when you are holding a firearm in your hands and these rules are written by the blood, the blood of tens of thousands of victims of accidents. The violation of these rules, sooner or later, will result in tragedy. They san accidentally injure each other or, for example, a journalist or even a child at the window in a building kilometers far away from the location of this regiment. Do those young men who are there today realize what misfortune they have escaped.”
Chairman of the Yerevan Press Club, Boris Navasardyan, in an interview with Aravot.am, addressing the press conference held in the territory of the Patrol-Sentry Service regiment, expressed an opinion that at least in these conditions what happened does not serve a sufficient ground to call this group terrorists, especially since there is no article of terrorism by the criminal case, “In other words, to say that the journalists are communicating with the terrorists would be wrong.”
The Code of Ethics of Armenian Media and Journalists defines, “Not to promote in any way ethnic or religious hatred and intolerance, or any discrimination on political, social, sexual, and language grounds, exclude hate speech. To be careful when disseminating information about terrorist acts, to rule out content and reports that may instill sympathy towards terrorists, to treat witnesses of events as sources of information delicately, and avoid disclosing the identity of relatives or friends of hostages and possible victims without their consent.”
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During the press conference at the Patrol-Sentry Service regiment, one of the members of the armed group, Sedrak Nazaryan, urged people, “Let them get thru with gasoline bottles and stones, Armenians know fighting very well. Let then not sit under the walls and say pompous words, let them take the gasoline can and hit the head of the one who blocks his way, let the dear police open the way.” The “Sasna Tsrer” are not terrorists but the calls for violence by the members of the group were also criticized by some of the public. Whether the media has violated the ethical norms of the Code of Ethics by disseminating the calls for violence, in response to our question, Mr. Navasardyan replied, “In any case, the fact that the society indeed needs to realize what is going on and get information prevails. I think that the journalists communicating with the armed group have not violated any ethical or professional norm.”
As the Chairman of YPC said, the press conference was conducted in an unpleasant atmosphere because communicating with armed people is not positive in terms of security and generally, for the work of the journalist, but it is more up to the armed groups than the journalists, “The journalists if they have no other option they do their professional duty. This question should be addressed to the armed group that if they come out to a meeting with journalists, they need to be without arms because in this way when the weapon is almost ready to shoot, it cannot leave a good psychological impression on the audience. If we are talking about normal and civilized conversation, a man should not come out with a gun to talk to the journalists.”
As for the calls appeared in the media regarding taking gasoline cans and going out, Mr. Navasardyan said, “If it were a novelty or had an impact on the public sentiment, may be it was possible not to disseminate a material with such content. But I think that they were repeating what everyone knew, and important information about the negotiation process and the local situation was going on along with it. I think it could be sacrificed for the sake of listening to this kind of information to other important information.”
Nelly BABAYAN
