The commanding body has been keeping an eye on the articles that are published in the media and examining articles about the coronavirus with a magnifying glass since the Armenian government declared a state of emergency.
Several websites have been ordered to remove several articles over the past few days.
The editor-in-chief of Tert.am, Aram Antinyan, said, “The police have called us for four articles since the state of emergency was declared. They called me directly every time, but I asked them to send me their statements in writing from now on because I do not agree with their claims that the articles we have published may cause people to panic. An interesting situation arose surrounding the fourth article.
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The police notified us that we need to remove an article where it said that an Armenian citizen who visited Russia was confirmed to have the coronavirus. However, several hours later, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that information. The authorities are forcing us to only use the operative staff as our source, which is not working in an operative manner.
They are not even following international news. If we listen to them, then we won’t be able to publish any information on what’s going on throughout the world. They told us to remove another article where Hollywood actor Idris Elba said that he may have caught the coronavirus from the Canadian First Lady. Of course, we remove these articles, but based on the condition that we will appeal against those decisions in the future.”
Hripsime Jebejyan
