On May 25, during a protest at Liberty Square, a journalist of “5th Channel” was attacked by the protestors, hindering the journalist’s work. A case was filed by the police, the journalist was summoned for questioning. In an interview with “Media Advocate”, the director of the TV company confirmed the happening. Earlier, Harutyun Harutyunyan published a post on Facebook. We also received clarifications from the journalist who did not want to publicize her name. She mentioned that when asking one of the protest participants about the reason that has brought him there, the participants attacked her with insulting words, calling her Turkish and bloody, after which they made her leave. Moreover, the journalist told us that she had received a more heated resistance on the day of the change of Robert Kocharyan’s preventive measure. At the entrance to the court, a group of men uttered curses and insults in the presence of the classmates of her 4th grade son, which also became a subject of discussion at school.
The “Media Advocate” initiative calls for the protest organizers to refrain from violence and the police which acted as a guarantor for the peaceful nature of the protest, to ensure the unhampered work of the journalists. The “Media Advocate” will pursue the revelation of the organizers and the participants of violence.
Thus, point 3 of the Article 4 of the paragraph 2 of the Law on Mass Media has been violated that is to say, the journalist’s professional activities were hindered, as a consequence of which the protest should have stopped simply because the 2nd part of the 5th Article and the 1st part of the 33rd Article of the Law on MASS MEDIA has been violated.
