Police Signifies The Function Of Protecting The State Official Above

POLICE SIGNIFIES THE FUNCTION OF PROTECTING THE STATE OFFICIAL ABOVE ALL. ASHOT MELIKYAN

January 14 2014

Aravot.am inquired from Ashot Melikyan, Chairman of Committee to
Protect Freedom of Expression, how he estimates the recent statement
of the police, according to which, interfering with journalists’ lawful
professional activities at the State Economic University of Armenia is
not justified. “The police have investigated the incident incompletely,
I am sure about it, because if an independent expert looks, he will
see that the journalists are not able to go to the hall, where they
were supposed to implement their activities, particularly, to cover
the defense of Taron Margaryan’s PhD thesis and they failed doing
it. There is no other option than to prevent professional activity,
especially when there is a video, we see the students’ impudent
behavior, and the Rector does not rebuke the students. In short,
we, some journalistic organizations, have stated our sentiments and
estimates in our statements and we believe that this is a classic
interference with the professional activities of the journalists,”
said the Chairman of Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression. Recall
that journalistic organizations, in their statement with regard to the
incident at the University of Economics, have requested Yerevan Mayor,
Taron Margaryan, to provide explanations regarding the incident; the RA
Ministry of Education and Science to examine the issue of the Rector
of the State University of Economics for complying in his position
for involving the students in immoral action; the law enforcement
agencies to bring the guilty of the incident to responsibility for
impeding the lawful activities of journalists. As for the part of
the statement made by the police where it says about the offensive
expressions to the journalists, and moving the matter to civil-legal
relations, according to which, the matter is subject to solution by
court order. With this regard, Mr. Melikyan said, “It can not only be
a matter of civil law, if it comes to the prevention of journalistic
activity, there is a clear Article for it in the Criminal Code,
Article 164. The police shall be obligated to evaluate the incident
in compliance with this Article. We believe that this once again
shows that the police are simply signifying its other function, the
function of defending the state official above all, and the rule of
law is not always being implemented.”

Gohar HAKOBYAN

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress