Yesterday at nearly 9:40 a.m. two unknown people beat up a journalist of the Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper Lusine Barseghyan. She was assaulted by unknown men as she left her parents’ apartment block in Yerevan in the morning. She said they kicked and punched her without saying anything. Barseghyan had numerous bruises on her head, arms and feet and complained about sharp headaches as she spoke to our reporters. “It was so unexpected,” she said. Barseghyan is sure that the crime against her was planned in advance because the criminals had information that on that night she was going to stay over at her mother’s. “Prior to that about a week ago a young man went to my parents’ in Avan-Arinj neighborhood. He was trying to find me. He said that he wanted to work in the Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper. My father told him that I don’t live there and that the newspaper has its own address. He said that the editorial center of the newspaper gave him their address. On that same day a suspiciously looking guy approached me in the editorial center of the newspaper and introduced himself as someone working at the Sargis Tkhruni center. He said that he wanted to speak to me. I offered him to wait until I find time to talk to him. He left and by the time I was free he disappeared. He called me in an hour, named himself as Karen and said that he would stop by in an hour but he didn’t do so. My husband started to worry but I said that there is no need to worry because the officers of the National Security had been constantly watching the newspaper building. They follow where I go, etc. Last night I spent at my parents’ place in Avan Arinj. I noticed that a dark Lada (model of vehicle) was pulled over near my parents’ apartment. When I left their place the car left too. A little later when I was going down the staircase of the street two people attacked me from behind. They punched me several times and said, “so it was you, ha?” I started to scream and people started to approach us. These guys ran away,” said Barseghyan. After that Lusine took a taxi and went to the newspaper’s office. On the way there she noticed that a white moskvich vehicle was following her with the plate numbers 15 LU 393. The driver was wearing a police major’s uniform. “For one moment that car started to drive next to us and I started to swear at them. The policeman, who was driving the car didn’t say a word. But he could stop his car and ask me I was screaming at him. He didn’t. This gives me grounds that the ones, who beat me, left in that moskvich,” said Barseghyan. The journalist, whose newspaper boasts the highest circulation in the country, linked the attack to a recent series of articles by her that scrutinized the allegedly illicit activities of influential individuals close to the government. Those included the chief of President Serzh Sargsyan’s staff, Hovik Abrahamyan, tycoon Samvel Alexanyan and the controversial mayor of Yerevan’s Erebuni district, Mher Sedrakyan. All three men have repeatedly been branded as crime figures by “Haykakan Zhamanak” and opposition politicians. As of Tuesday evening law-enforcement did not launch criminal proceedings in connection with the incident which “Haykakan Zhamanak” said will not affect its news reporting. “If they think they can intimidate us, they are badly wrong,” said Barseghyan. “My next articles will be much more hard-hitting.” “We will conduct our own investigation to reveal the culprits because we are sure the authorities will as usual fail to do so,” she said. “This incident once again showed that we live in a country where mass media are not free,” said Nune Sargsyan, head of the Yerevan office of the U.S. media support group Internews. Aram Abrahamyan, editor of another major Armenian daily, “Aravot,” also laid the blame on the government and, in particular, its unspecified “criminalized elements.” “I have no doubts that it was done by some government circles,” he told the journalists. “Unfortunately, this was not the first or the last such incident.” President Serzh Sargsyan effectively denied the opposition claims on Tuesday when his spokesman condemned the attack. “Everyone must understand that gone are the days when issues could be solved by force,” the presidential press secretary, Samvel Farmanyan, said, according to the Regnum news agency. “During the past 15 years there were several cases of violence against the professional activity of journalists. The Ombudsman calls for the law-enforcers to seriously investigate this crime and find the culprits,” reads the statement of the Ombudsman.
