Photos of Sad-Looking Kids Removed from Armenian President’s Official Website

On December 24, Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan and First Lady Rita Sargsyan hosted dozens of children from all around the country in a festive New Year and Holy Christmas event. The coverage of the event by Sargsyan’s press service, however, has caused quite a stir on social media after several photos of not-so-cheerful looking kids were removed from the news release on the President’s official website.

The photo in question, re-posted on Facebook by user Karen Harutyunyan, shows pleased-looking Sargsyans’ surrounded by a crowd of doleful children. “This and several other photos were removed from president.am. That’s how we make everyone happy – by erasing the sad,” Harutyunyan captioned his post.

Speaking to Epress.am Harutyunyan noted that he had found the cashed version of the news release through a web search engine. “We can see that 4 of the 24 photos are absent, however, they can be viewed with the cashed links since they haven’t been removed from the server yet. The new post on website contains 28 photos, but not the 4 removed ones.” 

photo of the original post

the post on Sargsyan's website as of December 25 afternoon