From 21 to 31 October, 2019, the “Media Advocate” initiative followed online media reports on the Vice-president of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia, Alen Simonyan’s personality and activities.
35 leading Armenian news agencies have been monitored.
In the specified period, 177 articles were declared, 48 of which were negative, 129 were neutral.
No positive articles were declared on the NA Vice Speaker Alen Simonyan this week.
There is an opinion in the public and media field that Alen Simonyan takes various hits, as he comments on the most discussed topics and receives some instructions.
Referring to Alen Simonyan’s statement that Serzh Sargsyan is afraid, Artak Zakaryan noted: “As far as fear is concerned, all of you, dear Alen, should be afraid, always, it is enough to be “duxov” (slogan of Armenia’s Velvet Revolution, meaning brave) Fear is a sign of maturity, intelligence, and strength. And in politics, along with courage, heroism, determination and wisdom, fears also make us think and act for a better future.”
According to the press, Venice Commission President Gianni Buquicchio has hinted that a political persecution has been launched against Hrayr Tovmasyan. The media referring to it, wrote: “Following Buquicchio’s statement, the “Facebook” segment of the government has suddenly become too active and started something like a flash mob by spreading series of appreciation and expressing their gratitude to the Venice Commission for making such a statement. Alen Simonyan and Ruben Rubinyan, in particular, were quite active in this matter. They published the same text on Facebook at the same hour. By the way, both of them were, in fact, misrepresenting the statement of the Venice Commission President on the situation over the Constitutional Court. ”
