Armenia arrests suspected author of fake news which posed national security sabotage threat

The man who was behind authoring a fake news report through a fake Facebook account which made it to Azerbaijani headlines has been detained by the Armenian National Security Service (NSS).

The suspect ran a Facebook account by the name of Diana Harutyunyan and used the account to spread false information, the latest of which was a fake report claiming that Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan has congratulated US President Donald Trump on the assassination of Major General Qassem Soleimani. Azerbaijani news media even cited this fake report and published it in their local outlets. The report was also published in the Iranian press. This fake report was refuted on the same day, but the seriousness of the matter in question made PM Pashinyan personally comment earlier : “This is the case when the fake “freedom” of speech has created a threat for our national security. The authors of the report and their motives must be revealed”.

“The public distribution of fake news with such content aimed at inciting ethnic, racial and religious hostility, manipulation in the information-propaganda arena has inflicted significant damage to the national security interests of the Republic o...