From 11 to 20 September, 2020, the “Media Advocate” initiative followed online media reports on the mayor of Yerevan, Hayk Marutyan’s personality and activities.
35 leading Armenian news agencies have been monitored. In the specified period, 265 articles were declared, 63 of which were negative, 2 were positive and 200 were neutral.
Numerous negative articles were published on Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutyan.
Poet Hamo Sahyan’s son, Nairi Sahyan, expected a revolution in the field of culture after the events of 2018, but, according to him, the so-called revolution did not take place in any field, in the field of culture either. He, in particularly, noted: “It is both funny and sad for me that the fate of Hamo Sahyan’s statue should be decided by Hayk Marutyan and Arayik Harutyunyan. Should they decide the fate of that giant’s statue? This is really painful.”
Residents of Yekmalyan Street of the Kentron administrative district have been demanding their houses from the government for about 15 years. Recently, they applied to the Yerevan Municipality again, but the answer, to put it mildly, was not satisfactory for them. The residents do not demand anything from the municipality either, because, according to them, Mayor Hayk Marutyan is not interested in this issue at all. Moreover, when Arthur Meschyan was holding the position of the chief architect of Yerevan, they had discussions with him in which investors interested in the area participated, but Marutyan did not want to know about projects offered: “Dozens of drawings were drawn, Meschyan were taking and showing them to Hayk Marutyan. However, Marutyan was not rejecting them, he was throwing them.”
According to the press, nothing has changed since 2018 in terms of nepotism. Marutyan’s friends Ashot Meloyan and Hovhannes Grigoryan, who were filmed together with Marutyan in “Kargin” program, started working at the Center for Stray Animal Control NPO since last year.
According to the publications, Hayk Marutyan forbade to publish the amount of received bonuses, but the member of the Council of Elders will be obliged to declare his/her expenses and income։ this is not reasonable.
The publication was prepared with the support of “Hayrenik” Development Foundation
