According to 168.am, Gagik Hambaryan, political scientist from Gyumri, lecturer at Shirak State University, was invited to the Investigative Committee today.

His representative, a member of the “Five Human Rights Defenders Initiative”, lawyer Varazdat Harutyunyan, confirmed the information in a conversation with us, noting that Gagik Hambaryan, a “bastion of democracy” in Armenia, was charged under the 2nd part of Article 490 of the RA Criminal Code, namely:

The threat to publish defamatory information about a judge, prosecutor, investigator, head of an investigative body, investigative body, lawyer, representative, expert, or enforcer, or a close relative or close relative of the specified persons, or someone under the supervision, care, or upbringing of the specified persons, or causing other harm to the rights and legal interests of the specified persons, or to use violence against them, to destroy or damage property, in connection with the legal service or professional activities of the specified persons or exclusively as a judge, prosecutor, investigator, investigator head of the body, investigative body, lawyer, representative, expert or enforcer or a close relative of the said persons or a close relative or the said persons with the circumstance of being under the upbringing, care or supervision,

shall be punished by a fine in the amount of ten times to thirty times, or public works for a period of one hundred to two hundred hours, or restriction of freedom for a maximum period of two years, or short-term imprisonment for a maximum period of two months, or imprisonment for a maximum period of three years.

2. Publishing defamatory information about the persons provided for in part 1 of this article or causing other damage to the rights and legal interests of the said persons, or destroying or damaging the property of the said persons, in connection with the legal official or professional activities of the said persons:

shall be punished by restriction of freedom for a period of one to three years, or short-term imprisonment for a period of one to two months, or imprisonment for a period of two to five years.

By the way, this is the same article that is currently being investigated in the court regarding public-politician Edgar Ghazaryan.

“Keeping in mind that we were warned about the inadmissibility of publishing the pre-trial secret and we don’t want to touch on the content of the accusation, but I should mention that, naturally, Mr. Hambaryan did not accept the accusation. A ban on his absence was imposed on him, and the publication that is the basis of the accusation, for which Gagik Hambaryan was charged, in my opinion, fully fits into the framework of the fundamental right of a person to express himself freely, which is protected both by our Constitution and by the European Convention on Human Rights, regarding which there are also a number of precedent decisions of the ECHR.”said Varazdat Harutyunyan.

According to him, unfortunately, these decisions are often about our neighboring countries, Turkey and Azerbaijan, where the level of freedom of speech is quite low, and sharp criticism of one or another official is often persecuted in those countries.

“It is with pain that we have to record that Armenia has, in fact, taken the same benchmark in terms of restrictions on freedom of speech.” said Varazdat Harutyunyan, adding that additional information will be provided in case of developments in this case.

—