{"id":275401,"date":"2016-11-02T18:02:50","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T14:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=275401"},"modified":"2016-11-02T18:05:28","modified_gmt":"2016-11-02T14:05:28","slug":"referendum-observer-sued-for-allegedly-hindering-election-commission-activities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2016\/11\/02\/referendum-observer-sued-for-allegedly-hindering-election-commission-activities.html","title":{"rendered":"Referendum Observer Sued for Allegedly Hindering Election Commission Activities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t<span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;\">Armenia&#39;s law-enforcement authorities have started proceedings against Hakob Nazari-Dekhnavi, an observer stationed at the 4\/01 polling station in Yerevan during the December 6 constitutional amendments referendum, for allegedly obstructing the work of the election commission. If convicted, the man could face up to 2 years in prison.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tNazari-Dekhnavi, for his part, denies the accusations, insisting, furthermore, that he was subjected to physical abuse by the head of the 4\/01 election commission. Speaking to Epress.am, Davit Gyurjyan, a lawyer for Nazari-Dekhnavi, said that Armenia&#39;s Special Investigation Service had dismissed the man&#39;s report of abuse, having found the claim &ldquo;unsubstantiated.&rdquo; Meanwhile, the law-enforcement authority went ahead and initiated proceedings based on election commission head Armen Azoyan allegations that Nazari-Dekhnavi had created hindrance during the election process.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tJournalist Romik Danial, another observer at the same polling station, had filmed the skirmish, but Azoyan, a representative of the ruling Republican party, had taken his camera away, erased the recording, and seized the memory card. This incident is being investigation in a separate criminal case as an obstruction of journalistic activities.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t&ldquo;Even if Hakob Nazari-Dekhnavi did actually hit the election commission head, it does not mean that the activities of the entire election commission were hampered. It could have equally been a hindrance or not,&rdquo; Gyurjyan told our reporter after a November 1 hearing at a Yerevan district court.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe dispute with the head of the election commission started after Nazari-Dekhnavi approached Azoyan to report suspected election illegalities. In the ensuing argument, the observer received a slap in the face from the commission head.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nazari-Dekhnavi, for his part, denies the accusations, insisting, furthermore, that was subjected to physical abuse by the head of the 4\/01 election commission. Speaking to Epress.am, Davit Gyurjyan, a lawyer for Nazari-Dekhnavi&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":275378,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275401"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}