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Journalists Barred From Yerevan Council

azatutyun One week after an embarrassing brawl between pro-government and opposition members of Yerevan’s municipal council, Mayor Taron Markarian has decided to ban reporters from attending its further sessions.

Markarian’s spokesman, Artur Gevorgian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) on Wednesday that they will now be able to watch council debates only through monitors to be placed in a separate press room. He insisted that the measure will not restrict media coverage of the legislature empowered to elect the city’s mayor.

“You don’t have to be in the council auditorium,” said Gevorgian. “That must not be seen as a restriction in any way. Journalists will continue to move freely inside the [municipality] building on the days of council sessions.”

Markarian told his lawyers and press officers on February 19 to propose ways of “regulating” the work of the press corps accredited by the municipality. The order came six days after a violent clash witnessed by a large number of reporters.

Two members of the city council representing the opposition Yerkir Tsirani party were confronted by their pro-government colleagues when they tried to hand Markarian glass containers filled with sewage collected from a damaged sewer pipe in the city’s Nubarashen district.

Yerkir Tsirani’s Marina Khachatrian, slapped a male councilor representing the ruling Republican Party (HHK) after being jostled by him. The latter slapped Khachatrian while another HHK councilor puller her hair in response. Khachatrian and two other Yerkir Tsirani members, including the party leader Zaruhi Postanjian, were then physically forced to leave the hall.

Postanjian and her associates have often argued with HHK councilors during sessions of the council elected last May. Journalists have repeatedly witnessed and reported on insults shouted by Markarian’s loyalists at the three outspoken women.

Gevorgian claimed that the mayor’s decision to bar the press from council sessions is not aimed at covering up more such incidents. He said that the municipal administration will install more video cameras in the chamber to ensure the transparency of proceedings. The official noted, however, that live broadcasts of debates could be interrupted in case of “hooliganism” on the part of councilors.

Markarian’s actions following the February 13 incident have drawn criticism from Armenia’s leading media associations. The chairwoman of the Union of Journalists of Armenia, Satik Seyranian, said they could “impede legitimate professional activities of reporters” when she met the mayor on Wednesday. Markarian denied creating such obstacles.

Source: https://www.azatutyun.am/a/29053875.html

The Talat Paşa Committee, (the perpetrator of the Armenian genocide) a Turkish nationalist organization aiming to counter recognition of the 1915 events as the “Armenian genocide,” has been refused entry to Athens, where it had gone to issue a statement in protest at a recently approved Greek bill.
The members of the committee left for Athens on Jan. 9 with the aim of making a statement in front of the Greek Parliament, but returned by the Greek authorities.

The committee wanted to protest and demand the withdrawal of a controversial bill approved by Greece’s parliament in September that stiffens penalties for racially motivated crime and criminalizes the denial of genocide and war crimes.

The delegation of 13 people was intercepted by police at the airport and prevented from entering the city for “security reasons.” They were sent back to Turkey on the next flight.

Speaking to reporters in a news conference, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said anyone must be able to hold peaceful demonstrations, while refuting allegations that Ankara had tried to block the committee’s visit to Greece.

Perinçek case

Çavuşoğlu also commented on a European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) case between Switzerland and Turkey’s Workers’ Party (İP) Chairman Doğu Perinçek.

He said he would prefer Perinçek, who is banned from going abroad in relation to an ongoing coup case, to be able to attend an ECHR appeal hearing on an Armenian genocide denial-related case.

Çavuşoğlu said he had expressed the same view in a phone conversation with Perinçek, but noted that the local court in Turkey would make the final decision.

Perinçek was found guilty by a Swiss court on March 9, 2007, after his participation in a number of conferences in Switzerland in 2005, during which he publicly denied that the Ottoman Empire had perpetrated the crime of genocide against the Armenian people.

Following the Swiss court’s decision, Perinçek appealed to the ECHR in 2008 in Strasbourg, arguing for “freedom of expression.”

However, Perinçek is currently prevented from leaving Turkey after being jailed in connection with the “Ergenekon” coup plot case.

“The process is in the [Turkish] Supreme Court’s hands now,” Çavuşoğlu said.

The foreign minister also stressed that Turkey would “defend its thesis in the best way possible” in the upcoming months.