Armavia Staff Protested Outside Local Newspaper Office Because of Republished Epress.am Article

Employees of the Armenian air carrier Armavia, and others who had come to support company owner Mikhail Baghdasarov, were protesting outside the editorial office of local newspaper Chorrord Inqnishkhanutyun (“Fourth Self-Authority”) on Friday.

 

Apparently, the reason for the protest was the Epress.am article “Armenian Air Carrier Supplied Arms to Libya?” republished by Chorrord Inqnishkhanutyun which cited a statement by chief of general staff of Moldova’s national army, General Iurie Dominic, who said that the IL-76 that arrived in Moldova from Libya, with the aim of picking up a regular shipment of arms (and it is presumed will go back), belongs to “an Armenian civil air carrier.” (Note, the statement was originally published by the Ekho Moskvy (Echo of Moscow) radio station.)

 

Epress.am then sought comment from Armenian Department of Civil Aviation press secretary Nelly Cherchinyan, who said that “only [Armenian national air carrier] Armavia can comment on this matter.”  However, Armavia’s press office did not respond to calls at the time.

 

Later, Armavia press secretary Nana Avetisova informed Epress.am that Armavia has never had a IL-76 aircraft and only transports passengers and not cargo.

 

Chorrord Inqnishkhanutyun reporter Gohar Veziryan, speaking with Epress.am on Friday, said that nearly no one gathered outside their office yesterday knew why they had come. “Only a few knew; the rest were simply ensuring the numbers.”

 

“They were making statements of a damning nature; they were accusing us of disseminating false information. They were declaring, ‘We’ll crush and incinerate the editorial offices — what do you want from the guy, that man is a benefactor [referring to Mikhail Baghdasarov].’ We were trying as much as possible to explain that we weren’t the original source, that we republished [the story] from Epress.am, but they didn’t want to understand anything — they only threatened and cursed [at us],” said the journalist. “They initially blamed us, saying we didn’t republish the information identically, but when the police came and ensured our safe entrance into the building, one of the women [from the group of protestors] got in with us and I showed her both the paper’s publication and [the article] published on the Epress.am website.”

 

Veziryan asserted that protestors had brought with them video cameras, and that Kentron and Yerkir Media TV stations were also present.

 

In Veziryan’s opinion, those people only needed an opportunity to come out against Chorrord Inqnishkhanutyun, since “We’ve always paid attention to Baghdasarov’s activities. It was clear that those people were particularly directed from a specific location.”