Armenia’s central police division is investigating a book by local author Hovhannes Ishkhanyan. While being questioned at the station, the author had the impression that the investigators find that the author’s collection of stories in Demob Day, published in 300 copies last year, distorts reality, discredits the Armenia’s Armed Forces, and insults religion and Armenian mothers. <\/p>\n
“Since in this case the subject matter is the army, they take it personally, take it upon themselves \u2014 they are insulted and begin to seek revenge,” says Ishkhanyan. <\/p>\n
According to the author, since the police doesn’t have legal grounds to launch criminal proceedings against him, it wants to accuse him of disseminating pornographic material.<\/p>\n
“Of course it’s absurd to include the text under Article 263<\/a>, but basically, if they’re taking the legal route, even if it’s absurd, they only have that on me because in Armenia there’s no [criminal code] article for insulting the army,” he says.<\/p>\n Anna Israelyan, editor of the online version of local daily Aravot, finds that this is clearly censorship.<\/p>\n “It’s true, there is explicit material and non-normative lexicon in Demob Day, but I want to recall that this is generally nothing new. Those who are trying to make someone accountable for this, I would suggest they read, for example, Venedikt Erofeev’s Moscow-Petushki [Moscow to the End of the Line],” she says.<\/p>\n According to Israelyan, some may like such literature while others do not, but to try to hold someone criminally accountable for it is, at the very least, wrong.<\/p>\n “It’s been a long time since international organization’s assessments of Armenia in terms of freedom of speech and expression had softened somewhat. I can now predict that if the police doesn’t stand back from this issue, there’s a high likelihood that we [Armenia] will again receive negative assessments, and this will be perceived as persecution, censorship and restriction,” she says. <\/p>\n