In the first half of May, the Syunik border incident became a reason for spreading misinformation. Before the early parliamentary elections, the coordinator of the observation bloc was targeted by fake news. And the incomplete and scandalous content about AstraZeneca continued to be spread on TV as well. Find out how much you know about misinformation through our test.

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The infections registered in Sisian were not the result of Lake Sev poisoning

On May 12, it became known that 296 cases with symptoms typical of intestinal infections were registered in the Sisian community. Water was considered a possible cause of the outbreak. On the same day, the Azerbaijani armed forces crossed the RA state border in the Lake Sev region.

The media wrote that the Azerbaijani side had poisoned Lake Sev, “Channel 5” was talking about “hydroterror against Armenia” with rhetorical questions. Media.am found out that the information provided by official sources is incomplete in the report. Moreover, water is supplied to Sisian from Shaki, which is 10-15 km away from the city, is a closed spring and has no source from Lake Sev.

Petros Ghazaryan and Arman Babajanyan are wrong

On the day of the border incident in Syunik, Petros Ghazaryan, the host of the “Interview” program on Public TV, spread misinformation. Referring to the news of the day (summary here), he insisted on his first question, “․․․ It turned out that the Azerbaijanis came forward a little and it turned out that as they came forward, so they went back.” The guest of the program, NA deputy Arman Babajanyan agreed and added that they appeared in the “neutral zone.”

In fact, the Azerbaijanis had entered the territory of the Republic of Armenia and did not go back. There was no official information about them going back on the day of the show. Moreover, on the same day, late in the evening, a session of the Security Council was convened. Prime Minister Pashinyan confirmed that Azerbaijan has entered 3.5 km into Armenia, “the situation is at least close to a crisis, if not a crisis.”

Lavrov’s words were wrongly spread in the media

The day before the Syunik border incident, a joint press conference of the Foreign Ministers of Russia and Azerbaijan took place in Baku, during which the Russian Foreign Minister touched upon the issue of handing over maps of minefields in Nagorno Karabakh to Azerbaijan.

Sergey Lavrov’s statement was incorrectly spread in the Armenian media field. For example, Iravaban.net wrote, “During the press conference, Lavrov stated that the Armenian side is ready to hand over the map of minefields to Baku.” This news was spread by Gala.tv in the same way. Armlur․am published an article with the same content.

During the press conference, however, Lavrov did not state that Armenia would hand over the maps to Azerbaijan. In other words, this issue was discussed during his visit to Armenia, and “it seemed to him that the Armenian leadership understands the need to solve this problem.”

The fake Facebook account accused the observer to be an “Agent of Azerbaijan”

The user “Margarita Garcia” claimed late in the evening of May 11 that screenshots were being spread on Azerbaijani Telegram channels. They allegedly proved that Anton Ivchenko, one of the coordinators of the “Independent Observer” bloc, passed videos and other information to the Azerbaijani side for money.

Ivchenko said he would report the crime. In the comments of his post, users checked the facts, which showed that the pictures were not real. Media.am checked these allegations and confirmed them.

The account that spread fake content was not available hours later. Despite the published evidence, Ivchenko and his family continued to be targeted because of this misinformation.

ArmNews reported sensational but misleading information about AstraZeneca

ArmNews reported in the May 8 issue of “Brief News” that former Taekwondo World Champion Dave Meyers lost his leg after receiving AstraZeneca. The TV channel took this information from the Russian website Московский комсомолец, which in turn translated the material from the British Daily Star tabloid.

Reading the content of the source, it becomes clear that the TV channel presented the information incompletely. The British tabloid mentioned that the athlete himself sees a connection between the disease and the vaccine he received a few hours ago. However, the doctors do not share this opinion, noting that the reason is not known.

Media.am also discovered that the news about the British athlete was not the only negative news about vaccines broadcast on the same day in the same section of ArmNews.

Public TV is misleading

During the May 7 issue of Public TV’s Lurer, it is not clarified that the amendments to the Electoral Code will not be applicable during the 2021 Extraordinary Parliamentary Elections. The article does not mention a date, as a result of which the impression is created that all the mentioned positive changes refer to the upcoming elections. Moreover, the author of the news notes, “debates will become mandatory in this and next elections.”

However, Hamazasp Danielyan, MP of the “My Step” faction, coordinator of the working group on electoral reforms, noted from the NA tribune on the same day that these changes will not be applied during the extraordinary elections. “The simple reason is that we could not get any assurance or even a position on its content, whether it would be ratified by the president or not,” Danielyan said.

The mother of the journalist who filmed the Yerablur incident was not in the video

On May 9, the second president Robert Kocharyan visited Yerablur, where an incident took place: The victim’s mother shouted at Kocharyan and his son and cursed them. This episode was videotaped and posted on his Facebook page by araratnews.am journalist Nane Arzumanyan.

Later the same day, false information was spread on the Internet that the woman was Arzumanyan’s mother who filmed this episode: Nane’s brother was killed during the 44-day war. The journalist denied this information, also published pictures of her mother and the woman seen in the video for comparison.

The video was old, according to the Ministry of Defense, it was a “light incident”

On May 2, a video of an Azerbaijani-Armenian military incident on the Syunik border was spread on the Internet. In it, attempts were made to clarify the borders for about 5 minutes by the military of both sides.

The Ministry of Defense told Pastinfo that the video incident took place about two weeks ago in the direction of Kapan. According to the Ministry of Defense, the “light incident” was settled very quickly, the area is again under the control of the Armenian side.

Denials

❌ “Haypost” denied the rumors about the reductions and informed that at the moment the company is replenishing its team.

❌ The NSS denied the news that a group of people crossed the Armenian-Turkish border from the Armavir area.

❌ Ministry of Health denied rumors about mandatory vaccination of medical workers with “AstraZeneca”

Arshaluys Barseghyan