“Levon Yeranosyan ordered to catch all the journalists” (video)
It has already been three weeks that journalist Hakob Karapetyan is trying to get his camera’s memory card from the police. The card contains information about the activities of the police on June 23. “I saw that commander of police forces Lyova Yeranosyan snatched the camera of one of my colleagues and broke it throwing on the ground. I also shot the moment when Levon Yeranosyan ordered to catch all the journalists. The policemen followed me until North Avenue, I decided not to resist and follow them. I was taken to a place, where Hunan Poghosyan and Lyova Yeranosyan were standing. Hunan Poghosyan told them to take the memory card of my camera and return the camera.” The journalist went to police for instituting a criminal case with regard to the case of impeding his professional activities and for getting the confiscated memory card, yet just an investigation is underway. Hakob Karapetyan notes: “No one has received a status of a defendant or a suspect, when there is much video evidence. Only publications in the media are enough to bring forward the issue of calling some senior police officers to account.” One of the videos shows how a policemen in civilian clothes is swearing “Lragir” website’s journalist Tehmine Yenokyan. The latter applied to the SIS for punishing the policeman who exceeded his powers as well as for carrying out an investigation with regard to the case of impeding her professional activities. “Arthur Ghalechyan, the policeman who exceeded his powers, received a severe reprimand by the police, but it isn’t the police, which should assess the activities of the policemen, in this case a criminal case must be instituted.” Not punishing the persons, who used violence may have much worse consequences. According to Human rights defender Zhanna Alexanyan not only ordinary policemen must be punished. “Criminal case must be instituted in order to reveal the actions of the police and punish, in particular, I want to mention the presence of three deputy police chiefs and their orders to break, to use force against the journalists, not to mention common citizens, cases of beating the underage.” Human rights defender considers the investigation with regard to the incidents on June 23 to be one step forward for the police, “Reprimand is a huge progress, as we saw that after beatings the policemen were awarded, so it is a step forward, according to the police.”
