Open news feed Close news feed
A A

There is differentiated attitude toward journalists: appeal of A1+ journalist refused (video)

Social
artak

Armenia’s Court of Appeal today refused the appeal of A1+ TV company’s journalist Marine Khachatryan and her representative. The Court decided that the judgment of the Court of First Instance is legal. To remind, Marine Khachatryan, a journalist working with A1+ Company, and her legal representative, went to the Court in October requesting the latter to discard the decision of the Court of General Jurisdiction of Yerevan’s Arabkir and Kanaker-Zeytun administrative districts and oblige the investigative body to continue the inquiry into a last September incident near the National Assembly in Yerevan. On September 9, 2014, after members of the Hakaharvats (Counter Attack) street art group hung a banner reading “Hello Rob” (Rob referring to Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan) on the National Assembly’s main gate, the chief of the NA security Karen Hayrapetyan came out and tore down the banner. Then he hit A1+’s journalist Marine Khachatryan, who was covering the incident, on the arm, causing her to drop her recording device – iPad – to the ground. Karen Hayrapetyan then tried to hit the journalist for a second time but he missed her. The SIS investigator decided to terminate the case in connection with the incident due to lack of corpus delicti. “From the very beginning we foresaw how it would end, and the statistics prove the same, that there is a differentiated attitude toward journalists, in terms of defense of journalists’ rights state authorities, authorities of preliminary investigation and investigation are careless or put a lot of efforts so that by that article, article on impeding professional activities of journalists, no one is held liable,” lawyer Artak Zeynalyan told A1+. According to human rights defender, there was corpus delicti in the act of the chief of the NA security Karen Hayrapetyan. The decision will be appealed in the Court of Cassation.