Gevorg Petrosyan presented a bill to make an addition to the Criminal Code during the session of the National Assembly Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs, which has to do with former representative of the Ministry of Defense, Artsrun Hovhannisyan, and his “we will win” propaganda.
According to the bill, the deputy proposed that officials will be criminally punished when presenting wrong, distorted information on issues of public interest. He said that now they present this information as speakers and are not held responsible for what they said. “For 43 days, an individual authorized by the Ministry of Defense who, according to rumors, is enjoying his vacation outside of Armenia, said that we are winning the war. He presented misinformation at the highest level, and then we found out that we not only didn’t win, but we lost in the most humiliating and catastrophic manner. The purpose of this is for state officials to have some restraint and a sense of responsibility. Artsrun Hovhannisyan was not a waiter; he was an authorized individual. He said that we are going to do this and that for 43 days, and then we find out that we suffered so many casualties… Artsrun Hovhannisyan and other officials lied, and they are now walking free.”
Gevorg Petrosyan believes that many parents are waiting for “these liars to be punished.” “This bill aims to punish those liars.”
My Step deputy Nazeli Baghdasaryan said that the presented information contained elements of propaganda and was aimed towards the enemy. Gevorg Petrosyan was surprised. “If we lead according to that logic, that same person can get up and say, ‘People, we don’t have any problems now, we’re capturing Turkey right now.’ He could say that this is just propaganda, shouldn’t we make Turkey scared too? The people will get excited and go to fight. At that time, we won’t have 7,000 casualties, but 17,000. They need to calculate the benefits and costs of such information.” In his opinion, it is possible to use that tactic, but not at the expense of human lives.
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The chair of the committee, Vladimir Vardanyan, said that they cannot solve the issue like this because the frame is very large. For example, is being friends with Khorenatsi an issue of public interest? This formulation can cause any issue to be considered one of public interest.
Petrosyan responded that it is better for them to say that they are voting against the bill and be done with it. Adjacent speaker Sisak Gabrielyan said that other articles of the Criminal Code ‘close’ the issue, and there is no need for new additions.
In his concluding speech, Gevorg Petrosyan said that if they want certain formulations, then many articles of the Criminal Code need to lose their force. “It says, for example, someone else’s property. Someone who steals his wife’s jewelry can say, ‘Oh, it’s my wife, we love each other, that isn’t someone else’s property.’ Therefore, 80 percent of the Criminal Code needs to lose force… If there’s a decision to vote against my draft, then do it. But I am insulted. Can anyone here claim that Artsrun Hovhannisyan did not know what he was talking about? I cannot respect that opinion. Nikolay Baghdasaryan said that he will be voting against it, but if Baghdasaryan votes in favor, it will be the same as me pulling the complex here by rope.”
The draft was not passed.
Hripsime Jebejyan
