The human rights defender of Armenia Armen Harutiunyan touched upon the pre-election climate, saying sorry for the lacks tolerance and condemned the incident, which take place in the framework of the campaign. There is a quick response team in the framework of the Ombudsman’s office. The reporters asked him what happened to the quick response team which had left for Talin a week past the incident during Ter-Petrosyan’s rally in Talin. “There were newspaper reports regarding this incident that the quick response team left one or two days late. I should note that in such cases the quick response team does not respond. We contact law enforcers, if charges are brought, if they respond, the quick response team arrives there,” Armen Harutiunyan says. Armen Harutiunyan referred to shooting at the election offices of several candidates, death threats, clashes, as well as the most recent incident on February 7 in Nor Nork where two young supporters of Levon Ter-Petrosyan were beaten. “I reject these things, I condemn. Today our quick response team left for Nor Nork, you know, in connection with this incident, when people were beaten. In this connection, our quick response team will come back, we will study and we will make a statement,” said the human rights defender. “As to yesterday’s incident, in the morning the quick response group has left, perhaps in this stage it would be right if we responded quickly. Look, also the incident in Artashat, that incident should be condemned. As of the incident in Massive then our quick response team will visit and we will survey it. Only after that we can clearly make a statement,” he said. Can the Ombudsman protect the rights of citizens in the event of the fact their rights are being violated at present, such as receiving of objective information, when the TV channels are providing biased information? To this question of the A1+ the Ombudsman answered, “I as an Ombudsman am not satisfied with the broadcast of information on the public TV because I should mention that private TV channels may have some private interests. This balance must be kept by the Public TV. In many cases in the news programs of the Public TV the opinion goes beyond the poles. They respond to politicians and comment on them, however all they have to do is to broadcast and the society must make an opinion. In this regard the rights of citizens are being violated.” By the way, the Ombudsman has already reached to receive letters about electoral bribe dissemination, passport collection, actions undertaken against campaign offices, etc. As of the question whether it is a violation that the presidential candidate Serzh Sargsyan continues to occupy the Prime Minister’s post during the campaign Harutyunyan answered that the Armenian legislation doesn’t clearly define it as a violation. “Our legislation doesn’t define that the Prime Minister should take a vacation. Therefore it is not a violation.”
