{"id":11205,"date":"2019-03-12T19:08:45","date_gmt":"2019-03-12T19:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/media.am\/one-lie-two-ministers\/"},"modified":"2019-03-12T19:08:45","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T19:08:45","slug":"one-lie-two-ministers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/verified\/2019\/03\/12\/11205\/","title":{"rendered":"One Lie, Two Ministers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Livenews.am published<\/a> the article \u201cPreventing Propaganda of Perversion in Armenia Is A Crime: The Armenian Government\u2019s Position\u201d on March 7. The material, which contained fraudulent information, was then re-published<\/a> by other sites as well.<\/p>\n

The topic and subject matter are not new. The author of the article has published<\/a> material on irate.am back in May 2018. It was dedicated to the activity of David Harutyunyan, former Minister of Justice. The few paragraphs of the old article have been slightly modified by the author and \u201cadapted\u201d to the current situation.<\/p>\n

\"Article<\/p>\n

\"Article<\/p>\n

\n

The context of the article<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The article was published on the website Livenews.am, the director of which is married to the head of the National Security Party, Garnik Isaghulyan.<\/p>\n

\"Information<\/p>\n

From 2004-2008 Isaghulyan was the President\u2019s Adviser on National Security Affairs, and the Parliament Representative of the President to the National Assembly. In 2009-2012, Isaghulyan is an advisor to the permanent representation of Artsakh in Armenia.<\/p>\n

The author of the article is Arthur Hovhannisyan, who according to Isaghulyan<\/a>, is responsible for the website Livenews.am. Hovhannisyan\u2019s articles are distinguished by their alarming rhetoric. For example, he authored \u201cPashinyan, Have You Gone Crazy? What Did You Say?\u201d \u201cThe Time Has Come To Strike The Alarm Bells, Wake Up Sleeping Armenians,\u201d \u201cCoordinated War Against The Traditional Family and the Spiritual, National Value System,\u201d and other texts.<\/p>\n

\n

The old article: \u201c[…] Our Best Guys Fought For This Kind Of Armenia, And Sacrificed Their Lives.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The article published in May was devoted to the news of Justice Minister Davit Harutyunyan\u2019s re-appointment after the revolution, which did not correspond with reality<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the article, the author acknowledged that the news was not true, but continued to argue why Harutyunyan should not be appointed minister. In the end, the author questioned the official refutation of the president\u2019s office. \u201cIsn\u2019t it a little incredible or even funny?\u201d Hovhannisyan did not bring arguments backed by facts.<\/p>\n

The objection against Davit Harutyunyan\u2019s alleged appointment was based on the fact that in 2017, The Draft Amendments to the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia, which had been deposited in the e-draft system but was not adopted. Based on the 197th amendment to the article entitled \u201cDiscrimination,\u201d the author commented on the interpretation of the law, which did not contradict the provisions contained in the law. In particular, he noted that the \u201chint of discrimination\u201d of homosexuals in Armenia would soon be punished, as there is no word in the draft law.<\/p>\n

\n

New Article: \u201cDid Some Of Our People Stand Up For This? Was The So-Called \u2018Velvet Revolution\u2019 Happen For This?…\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The opportunity to publish the information in the article published in March was based on a meeting of the Minister of Justice, Artak Zeynalyan, with the head of the Directorate General for Human Rights and Rule of Law of the Council of Europe, Christ Jiakomopulos. During the meeting, Zeynalyan noted that \u201cimportant legislative initiatives, in particular the draft Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes, are in process and being united by the Government and the Legislative Body, they will be adopted very quickly and will be implemented.\u201d<\/p>\n

Discussing this statement, Arthur Hovhannisyan writes, \u201cNaturally, the question arises: Is the current government preparing to adopt the draft criminal code of Armenia, pursuant to Article 197 of the Criminal code \u2026 including other violations of perversion […], in the spirit and responsibility of the non-violent, Velvet Revolution in Armenia?\u201d The author describes pervertedness using the term homosexuality.<\/p>\n

Although the ministry\u2019s statement did not contain any words in 2017 about the changes in the proposed and rejected Criminal Code, the author supposes that Zeynalyan speaks about that project.<\/p>\n

The rejected proposal bill did not contain Hovhannisyan\u2019s statement and claim.<\/p>\n

The author of the article states, \u201cWe also emphasize that in the E-draft.am website, the draft Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia (including Article 197), in that context, remains unchanged under the current authority, at the moment of writing these lines, and hence we have a full basis Considering that RA Minister of Justice Artak Zeynalyan ahs informed the above mentioned officials of the Council of Europe, or, in essence, promising that the draft Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes are in process and, being united by the Government and the Legislature, and will be implemented, refers to the draft Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia that has been published at the official website of E-draft.am at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

No laws are published in E-draft.am. It is a platform for public disclosure of legislative drafts. Ignoring this fact, the author builds a series of assumptions, claiming that the Minister of Justice has promised a number of officials of the Council of Europe to adopt the 2017 draft law, while it distorts<\/a> official information and does not correspond to reality.<\/p>\n

Often referring to the RA Constitution, Hovhannisyan dedicates his two publications to a draft provision that has not been adopted and does not function as a law of the Republic of Armenia. Consequently, the author and the journalist make misleading assumptions for the reader to follow.<\/p>\n

Media.am touched upon<\/a> the exploitation of the LGBT topic during times of political crisis.<\/p>\n

Karine Ghazaryan<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Livenews.am published the article \u201cPreventing Propaganda of Perversion in Armenia Is A Crime: The Armenian Government\u2019s Position\u201d on March 7. The material, which contained fraudulent information, was then re-published by other sites as well. The topic and subject matter are not new. The author of the article has published material on irate.am back in May Read the full article…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-verified","author_posts-karine-ghazaryan"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}