Journalist Nairi Hokhikyan Sues Daniel Ioannisyan

Journalist Nairi Hokhikyan has filed a lawsuit against Daniel Ioannisyan, the founder and program coordinator of the Public Alliance of Informed Citizens, for defamation and insult. This information was provided to NEWS.am from the judicial information system.

The basis of the lawsuit stems from a Facebook post by Daniel Ioannisyan, in which he accused the journalist of spreading lies and insulted him. “I just signed reports about the criminal activity of H1’s journalist Nairi Hokhikyan, who has been spreading diverse lies on Facebook (including about my sister), and also about Artom Khachatryan, known by the nickname ‘Shizolini.’ The Prosecutor General's Office and the National Security Service must investigate the posts of these individuals and initiate criminal prosecution against them. Being kicked out should not cross the boundaries prohibited by the criminal code,” Ioannisyan wrote.

His remarks were in response to an earlier Facebook post by Hokhikyan, where the journalist recounted an incident during the intense days of war in Artsakh concerning a close associate of Ioannisyan (later revealed to be his sister). Specifically, in his post titled “The War I Witnessed: Without Parentheses – Part 7,” Hokhikyan described a mysterious young woman who came to their shelter on the evening of October 17, holding her smartphone in a manner suggesting she was filming, and asked questions that raised suspicions among those present. Consequently, the girl was escorted to headquarters for questioning. According to Hokhikyan’s account, the girl, who refused to identify herself, initially claimed she had come to Artsakh with volunteers, later stated she was a journalist aiming to cover the war, and then provided entirely different reasons. Following this, Hokhikyan noted, the headquarters was forced to call in employees from the Artsakh National Security Service to clarify who they were dealing with. “Two employees of the Artsakh NSS arrived. A large number of photos appeared on the girl’s phone, showing strategic facilities and buildings,” Hokhikyan wrote, being confident that she might have even been detained for this, but later received information that “this girl was close to a person for whom orders were given from Yerevan to release her immediately.” It turned out that this referred to Daniel Ioannisyan’s sister.

Commenting on this post, Ioannisyan indicated that Nairi Hokhikyan is consciously spreading lies and found his sister’s behavior suspicious, as she had been under shelling and was frightened. Ioannisyan also denied the journalist’s claim that many photos on the girl’s phone showed strategic facilities and buildings.

Thus, Ioannisyan decided to go public with his claims and submitted a criminal report against Hokhikyan, while the latter headed to a civil court. Hokhikyan demands from the court to oblige Ioannisyan to publicly apologize and provide compensation for the insult caused.

The lawyer for Hokhikyan, Lusine Virabyan, informed NEWS.am that they will demand compensation for damage with the maximum limits prescribed by law, specifically 2 million drams for defamation and 1 million drams for insult. The lawsuit was received by the Yerevan City Court yesterday, on February 2, and the case has been assigned to Judge Arshak Petrosyan.