Yerevan Journalist Threatened After Article About Former Head of National Security Service

The Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor office (HCAV) has filed a report with the General Prosecutor’s office about recent threats of violence posted on Facebook against Yerevan-based journalist Mher Arshakyan. The following comment was left by a user on Arshakyan’s article – entitled “Gorik Hakobyan: the Monster” – about former head of National Security Service Gorik Hakobyan: “Every morning before you leave the house, make sure to hug your family tightly; you will not get away with this article…”

In an interview for CivilNet, Arshakyan suggested that the threat might be realized any minute “accidentally.”

“I feel a danger not in the sense that I’m being followed or watched: I fear that this threat might be realized ‘accidentally,’ as part of some criminal incident on the street in an innocuous moment and ‘by mistake,’ Arshakyan said.

The General Prosecutor’s office has forwarded the HCAV appeal to the National Police department for combating organized crime.

The human rights organization reports that the author of the comment was registered on Facebook under a name written in Greek letters. They have since deleted both the comment and the profile. HCAV points out that “the threat is more than real and aims to intimidate the journalist, which is a criminally prosecutable act.” HCAV demands that a criminal case be opened, and that the author of the threat be caught and called to responsibility.