Epress.am News from Armenia
The dispute between the Women’s Resource Center of Armenia (WRCA) and the website Zaruhi.com, which began last year, has not been resolved: Zaruhi.com’s editorial team refuses to publish a retraction or apologize for defamatory statements made about the NGO on its website.
In 2012, Zaruhi.com journalist Ruslan Tatoyan published a piece on Zaruhi.com in which he called the WRCA a “grant-taker” and “family destroyer”.
The WRCA took the matter to court, requesting a retraction from both the website and the journalist for defamation and insult. The first instance court sustained the lawsuit and ordered a compensation of 50,000 AMD (about $120 USD). The appeals court, however, found only the journalist (and not the website) liable.
“An apology should’ve been published on the website, but since only the journalist is responsible, he is unable to do so — the journalist does not have access to the site. Moreover, he no longer works there. The journalist is prepared to publish an apology, but the website doesn’t allow him to publish a stand-alone article, offering he do so by leaving a comment [on the website],” WRCA’s attorney, Nvard Piliposyan, informed Epress.am today. She said they have already said the only way to resolve the issue is to publish a retraction on the website, after which the matter can be considered closed.
According to Piliposyan, Zaruhi.com’s former director, current Republican Party of Armenia MP Hayk Babukhanyan, who till today is the chair of the website’s editorial board, after the incident, began to take action against the Center, discrediting it and making offensive statements, including complaining to the police with false accusations.
“[The Center] has a strained relationship with this person in particular, and as a result, the website is not agreeing to voluntarily publish an apology. In any case, we have a verdict confirming the defamation; it’s just that, because of one move, the court omitted the website from the list of respondents and the verdict is not actually being executed. The law requires that the apology must be published in the same way and in the same place as the [original] article,” said the attorney.
Piliposyan said the omission in the law is obvious: a lot of fuss is raised when cases go to court, but in many instances, court rulings aren’t executed, as there are no ways to implement them.
The Epress.am correspondent also spoke with the journalist, Ruslan Tatoyan, who said that the article was originally supposed to be published in the newspaper Iravunq because he works there.
“The fact that the article was published on Zaruhi.com was not my fault, though Zaruhi.com belongs to Iravunq. The trial took place against Zaruhi.com; meanwhile, I was a newspaper journalist. I quit my job in March, then I saw the verdict: both the financial demand and publishing the article were laid on me. I had no leverage: how could I publish the article on the website or without the editor’s knowledge? If there’s a court process that’s issued a ruling then it has to be executed. I never wanted to insult the Center or women; there are things I agree with and others I don’t, but there were epithets in the article which had nothing to do with me. Amazingly, only I was left as the defendant, and they washed their hands,” said the journalist, referring to Zaruhi.com’s editorial team.
According to him, he is also finding ways to publish a public apology and get rid of all this preposterous red tape.