The decision to ban Lilian Galstyan, a photojournalist for Panorama.am news site, from entering the National Assembly of Armenia goes to prove that every effort is being made to minimize the level of public awareness of the activities of state institutions, President of the Yerevan Press Club Boris Navasardyan told Panorama.am in an interview on Thursday.
The ban came after the photojournalist published a series of photos titled “Enhanced control and security measures in the National Assembly” on Wednesday.
“Those journalists who provide unwanted information on parliamentary happenings are facing overt persecution,” he said.
The media expert noted the photographs published on the Panorama.am website reflect the real picture in the parliament and there is no provision limiting the distribution of such photos.
The head of the Yerevan Press Club underlined that the restrictions on the activities of journalists in the parliament area according to the procedure established by the authorities are illegal, since the measures were applied before the official decision and are based on verbal instructions.
“This illegal process continues,” he said.
Referring to the part of the parliament decision, according to which it is prohibited to photograph the faces of security officers at the checkpoints, Boris Navasardyan said that he was not familiar with such a provision.
“I am not familiar with it, just as I was not familiar with the restrictions that were applied on August 2, that is, the decisions were made retroactively. Even if a document containing such a point is released now, its application without discussions and a notification is a gross violation o...
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