On September 16, the news service of the Public Television did not refer to the incident between the deputies of the “Bright Armenia” fraction and the security officer in the National Assembly. The deputies of the fraction tried to take to the NA session hall a poster “Take a step, leave boldly” demanding the resignation of Arayik Harutyunyan. NA Vice Speaker Alen Simonyan did not allow it, instructed the security officer not to let them in, the security officer even pushed Gevorg Gorgisyan. However, the NA Speaker invited the deputies inside with a poster. Later, pro-government deputies Alen Simonyan and Hrachya Hakobyan took photos with a poster during the sitting.
Public TV’s News Service did not cover this incident, besides, it slightly referred to the action of the “Bright Armenia” fraction in front of the National Assembly, demanding the resignation of the Minister of Education. Davit Khazhakyan, a member of the Luys fraction of the Yerevan Council of Elders, delivered a speech, in which he mentioned that Petros Ghazaryan would remain Arayik Harutyunyan’s only defender. Khazhakyan mentioned that the failures in the field of education are so obvious that if Arayik Harutyunyan had not been one of the faces of the revolution, he would have resigned several times. The news outlet provided a few seconds to the coverage of the action, no part of Khazhakyan’s speech was presented.
The news outlet did not present the march of the ARF Youth Union demanding the resignation of the Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports. Besides, the news outlet did not refer to the incident between a policeman and a woman which occurred in Raffi Street, and became the subject of wide discussions. The policeman pulled the woman because of the mask, detained her by force, then it became clear that the head of the police had appointed an official investigation.
“Media Advocate” initiative considers representation of such biased and selective information unacceptable. The publicly funded TV company is obliged to present the issues that have received public attention from all points of view.
