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Attacked
September 26
Vladimir Nazaryan, Russian Public Television (ORT), ATTACKED, HARASSED
A1+, THREATENED
Defense Ministry soldiers seized a Betacamcorder from Nazaryan, the Yerevan correspondent for ORT, four days after turbulent presidential elections in Armenia, an independent observer said. Nazaryan had filed a story to his Moscow bureau on election violence. The story, aired on ORT’s prime-time evening news program “Vremya,” described how the Armenian opposition stormed the parliament building on Sept. 25 to protest ballot-box tampering. When Interior Ministry police returned the camera to Nazaryan 10 hours after it was confiscated, Defense Ministry soldiers on the scene immediately grabbed him, beat him, and then returned him to his office, warning him not to file such reports. A Defense Ministry major told Nazaryan that his footage should not have shown tanks on the streets. The major warned another television company, A1+, which shared studios in Yerevan with ORT, that it could suffer reprisals as well if it did not “keep in line.”
For more information contact europeweb@cpj.org