We Witnessed an Unprecedented Phenomenon, When a Journalist is Deprived of Coverage Rights for an Entire Session: Gegham Manukyan

“In previous years, the press has been under various forms of pressure, there have been violations against individual journalists and media outlets, but alongside that, there have been free and brave journalists,” stated Gegham Manukyan, a member of the "Armenia" parliamentary faction, in the National Assembly, noting that these journalists even managed to express their civic positions in violation of the rules in the Assembly.

He reminded that in the hall, the ruling Your Party member Sargis Khandanyan and the spokesman for Yerevan Mayor Hayk Marutyan, Hakob Karapetyan, expressed their position through an action near the NA podium, yet not a single NSS officer expelled them, and no one was ejected; the NA live broadcast was not interrupted either.

“Pressures against the media have begun to take on a systematic nature, limits are beginning to be imposed on the information field,” said Gegham Manukyan.

He mentioned that the coverage of the National Assembly’s work is disgracefully restricted. “I look at my former colleagues sitting in the gallery, the journalist from "Yereqir Media", and I imagine how difficult it is for them to prepare comprehensive material when they are deprived of seeing what the public servant is engaged in within their office. Citizens have the right to know about the activities of their elected representatives in public spaces. In just a few days, we saw new unprecedented phenomena, when a journalist is deprived of coverage rights for the entire session; when anyone, even with a phone, can present the work of the NA, including the service of hundreds of armed personnel, but a specific journalist is deprived of their activity,” Manukyan said.

He welcomed the journalists sitting in the gallery and stated that if they were in their place, they would boycott the coverage of the NA’s activities. Manukyan recalled that during the days of the war, all editors acted like soldiers, not publishing the reality, spreading the lies of Artsrun Hovhannisyan.

It is reminded that the Deputy Head of the NA Staff Anna Grigoryan decided that Panorama.am photographer Lilian Galstyan has been deprived of the right to cover the first session of the Eighth Convocation of the NA. She has been banned from entering the NA.