The news of Haykakan Jamanak (“Armenian Times”) correspondent Hayk Gevorgyan’s arrest very quickly spread in social networking sites. In the three days he was behind bars, even a Facebook group and page were created with the aim of sharing news about him.

Local journalists and human rights campaigners comment on how local news providers worked that day, what sort of professional solidarity they displayed and how they covered the case.

Gegham Manukyan
Director, News and Political Programs at Yerkir Media TV 

I addressed this in my program Yerkri Shabaty (“the country’s week”). I am very sorry for the work of media — I’m referring to online media. Our society, TV critics and experts of the TV industry have to draw conclusions from this: good television in Armenia is not the television that praises itself with strident words and has expensive equipment, but moral television that reports the news. It was very painful for me to see news broadcasts on those days, when there wasn’t a single word about Hayk. When they could turn a hacker attack on one of the news sites into a nationwide issue but not say that a journalist was arrested in Yerevan. When you can talk big about being timely and so on but only present the police’s official statement. 

The papers and news sites, with some exceptions, worked quite well. Though there’s one more thing, on which Mesrop Harutyunyan gave the best assessment — regardless of whether we were by Hayk’s side and wanted him to be released early, we have to inform the public of what the police is saying and what counterargument Hayk or Hayk’s friends and his attorney are presenting. 

Avetik Ishkhanyan
Chairperson, Armenian Helsinki Committee

This was probably the first case in which regardless of its varying political views, the journalism community unanimously demanded Hayk’s release. And if with this arrest, officials assumed they would chide journalists, then I think, their plan wasn’t justified and had the opposite effect.

Petros Ghazaryan
Host and producer of Urvagits talk show, Kentron TV

I have a very positive assessment of the Armenian news sector’s behavior in this matter because all those who sympathize with Haykakan Jamanak and those who find that Haykakan Jamanak is not a paper but a means of propaganda, which sometimes violates all ethical norms and so on, united and, apart from one or two exceptions, the media sector displayed a united position. 

I can’t recall any other case whereby the news sector gave such a positive and united reaction to some issue. This incident was covered properly: TV stations addressed this issue and there were discussions, and I’m not even talking about the online media, the papers — very quickly, efficiently and multi-laterally. The police perspective likewise was portrayed and analyzed.

Arman Danielyan
President, Civil Society Institute NGO

I think that Hayk Gevorgyan’s imprisonment was covered quite well, considering that the following days were a Saturday and Sunday. Some time was required on Friday to understand what had happened, but reporters overall worked well. And that they released Hayk was also the result of this work. 

Gevorg Altunyan
Host and producer of Tesankyun talk show, Public TV 

I was happy to see that the media community very quickly and unitedly reacted to the journalist’s arrest, irrespective of a news outlet’s political or ideological orientation or preference. This once again proves that there’s been huge progress in our country in terms of forming civil society, which, of course, cannot but make us happy.