Demand for Public Apology from Agazaryan to Journalist

A number of journalistic organizations have issued a statement demanding that MP Hovik Agazaryan of the ruling Civil Contract party publicly apologize to journalist Knar Manukyan and guarantee that he will not allow disrespectful behavior towards media representatives in the future.

The statement notes: “On October 15, in the National Assembly, MP Hovik Agazaryan expressed discontent upon meeting Knar Manukyan, a correspondent for the ‘Zhoghovurd’ newspaper and Armlur.am website, regarding an interview published by her, and insulted her. According to the journalist, the MP called her a ‘scoundrel’, ‘disgusting’, and expressed hate speech, saying ‘you’re worse than a Persian’ (it is hard to imagine what he meant by this strange remark). On the same day, Hovik Agazaryan denied using the term ‘Persian’, yet other media correspondents witnessed the incident, and specifically, News.am journalist Rouzan Khachatryan confirmed that the MP did use that phrase.

We, the undersigned journalistic organizations, express our outrage and condemn the inappropriate behavior of the ruling party MP. We note that this is just one episode amid numerous conflicts, disrespectful attitudes, and insults that occur between MPs and journalists. This is a serious issue that must become the subject of comprehensive discussions in the Ethics Committee of the parliament, which, for unclear reasons, has yet to be established and operational.

Regarding the aforementioned incident, we demand:

• MP Hovik Agazaryan to publicly apologize to journalist Knar Manukyan and guarantee that he will not allow disrespectful treatment of media representatives in the future,
• the Civil Contract faction to evaluate Hovik Agazaryan's behavior and inform the public about it,
• the leadership of the National Assembly to take measures to alleviate tensions in the MP-journalist relationships and to address emerging conflicts in the Ethics Committee, drawing necessary conclusions.