On the referendum day I returned home from the empty and quiet streets of Yerevan and turned the TV set on. During the “Haylur” evening broadcast Artak Alexanyan asked his colleague from Gyumri whether there was snow in Gyumri and whether it didn’t influence on the referendum procedures and voters’ turnout. His colleague answered that snow didn’t influence on the referendum developments in Gyumri. He said that about 64% of voters had taken part in the referendum. Is this a new way to cover the fraud that took place? Does Artak try to fill his program with meteorological information? Does he want to cover up the reality and the fraud that took place with snow? If yes, I wonder what he can say to cover the real voters’ turnout in Yerevan. According to “Haylur”, there was about 55-60 % turnout of voters in Yerevan. Didn’t they visit polling stations? He definitely voted. Didn’t he see that the entrances of polling stations that were mainly located in school and kindergarten buildings were like usually on Sundays? You could rarely meet people there passing near polling stations. There was no snow in Yerevan. How are they going to cover the fraud that took place? Are they going to do it by closing their eyes or just lying because people from all over the world watch them?
“Haylur” and Artak Alexanyan speak about artificial numbers and say that about 64 % out of all voters have participated in the referendum. They want to fill up the empty streets, empty polling stations and empty ballot boxes by lying.
Artak Alexanyan used to be the last “leader” of “Haylur” who was able to escape from crossing the border between journalism and campaign. This Constitutional referendum pushed him to the other side of the border because you can’t represent the interests of authorities in Armenia without lying. Artak knows very well that the opposition boycott was the reason that few people took part in the referendum, I think there was about 15 % turnout, maximum 20 %. I have passed near a couple of polling stations. I stood there for a couple of minutes and had a look around. They say there wasn’t much fraud in the center of Yerevan. I entered the polling station that was located in the school named after Charents. According to observers only 189 voters had voted till 18:00. But according to the Electoral commission 345 voters had already voted. Then someone told me that this number was 360. I stayed there for about fifteen minutes. This time I saw at least about three voters there. This polling station was one of the busiest ones. A lot of journalists and observers speak about serious violations. But “Haylur” speaks about lines of people and good turnout.
Alas this referendum made Artak join the other “leaders” of “Haylur”, which are not journalists any more, but agitators and make campaign. “Haylur” is getting more specialized in broadcasting misinformation day by day. The best example for this is their information concerning the meeting of April 12 that policemen had found a gun with Shavarsh Kocharyan. They seriously and clearly lied (I wander whether they get prizes for misinformation).
At that time member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Armen Roustamyan was his guest in their studio who was speaking about good turnouts. It seemed to me that they were making people that had been at their homes all day long sure that they had gone out and taken part in the referendum. Is there any limit for lying and fraud that politicians shouldn’t cross? It is surprising that members of the Revolutionary Federation are the most active ones to speak about good turnouts. During a program on “H2” TV channel Levon Mkrchyan said that they were sure that people had participated and voted “yes” for the Constitution. Some other leaders of the coalition can’t speak about good turnouts and have nothing to say. Is the point of view that Revolutionary Federation has won only their own nation and that they were not able to win others but won only Armenians and didn’t let us form our own government and develop good governance true? Do some journalists have a limit for lying if we take into account the fact that politicians don’t? Do you remember when a journalist published some intimate photos of his colleagues in hisr newspaper? Journalists boycotted his action and his newspaper. Later some people beat their chief editor and their newspaper was closed. And no one protected him. His colleagues didn’t protect him and punished him. I don’t want to discuss how fair this was. Journalists boycotted this action because he had violated the ethical norms of journalism. Maybe they were right. And now which is the main ethical norm for journalists? Isn’t this the norm that doesn’t allow journalists to lie on purpose? In other words by giving misinformation on purpose journalists violate the main norm of journalism: the principle of truth. But why do the advocates of journalists’ ethics and journalistic organizations keep silence this time? Is it worth to discuss this issue?