“Today’s report is yet another deeply disturbing reminder of the immense danger posed by Pegasus and other spyware used to target journalists,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director, in New York. “Armenian and Azerbaijani authorities should allow transparent inquiries into the targeting of Armenian journalists with Pegasus, and NSO Group must offer a convincing response to the report’s findings and stop providing its technologies to states or other actors who target journalists.”
The report, “Hacking in a war zone: Pegasus spyware in the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict,” identified at least 12 people whose devices were infected by Pegasus, spyware produced by the Israeli company NSO Group. Many of the infections clustered around the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war between Armenia and Azerbaijan and its subsequent escalations.
The report was published Thursday, May 25, by the rights groups Access Now, Amnesty International, and Citizen Lab, the Armenian digital emergencies group CyberHUB-AM, as well as independent mobile security researcher Ruben Muradyan.
The targets included Armenian human rights activists, academics, and state officials, two media representatives who requested to be kept anonymous, and three named journalists:
The report says its authors found “substantial evidence” suggesting that Azerbaijan authorities purchased access to Pegasus, and that the targets would have been of intense interest to Azerbaijan. The targets were also critical of Armenia’s government, which is believed to have previously used another spyware product.
NSO Group previously told CPJ that it licenses Pegasus to fight crime and terrorism, stating that it investigates “all credible claims of misuse and take[s] appropriate action,” including shutting down a customer’s access to the software.
CPJ has documented the grave threat posed to journalists by spyware, and joined with other rights groups to issue recommendations to policymakers and companies to combat the use of spyware against the media, including by imposing bans on technology and vendors implicated in human rights abuses.
Azerbaijani journalists Sevinj Vagifgizi and Khadija Ismayilova were previously confirmed to have had their devices infected with Pegasus, while dozens of other prominent Azerbaijani journalists featured on a leaked list of potential Pegasus targets analyzed by the collaborative investigation Pegasus Project in 2021.
CPJ emailed NSO Group, the National Security Service and Ministry of Internal Affairs of Armenia, and the State Security Service and Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan for comment, but did not immediately receive any replies.
]]>On May 2, the Court of General Jurisdiction in Yerevan ordered 9 million dram (US$23,000) of Sargsyan’s assets to be frozen, as well as 9 million dram of the assets of his employer, 168 Hours, according to news reports and Sargsyan’s lawyer Aram Orbelyan, who spoke to CPJ.
The freeze stems from a civil defamation suit filed by Yerevan Deputy Mayor Tigran Avinyan on March 31, in response to a February 5 video report by Sargsyan accusing him of corruption.
On May 16, Avinyan’s lawyer announced on Facebook that he had applied to the court to withdraw the freeze on Sargsyan’s assets, saying his client had “no intention of bankrupting any media outlet or causing any financial inconveniences.”
Orbelyan told CPJ on Monday, May 22, that a court representative had confirmed the receipt of Avinyan’s application to drop the freeze, but authorities had yet to act on it. CPJ called the Court of General Jurisdiction for comment but no one answered.
“The asset freezes imposed on Armenian journalist Davit Sargsyan and the outlet 168 Hours are a worrying development that could have a chilling effect on the country’s media,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Authorities should drop these freezes and ensure that civil lawsuits against the media do not risk bankrupting independent outlets.”
168 Hours is frequently critical of the Armenian government. In the February video report, “Tigran Avinyan, the newly rich man,” Sargsyan alleged that Avinyan’s family was “steadily getting richer” through political influence since Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan came to power in 2018, those reports stated.
Orbelyan told CPJ that Avinyan did not challenge the facts cited in Sargsyan’s report but denied that they constituted corruption. CPJ emailed Avinyan for comment but did not receive any reply.
Ashot Melikyan, chair of the local advocacy group Committee to Protect Freedom of Speech, told CPJ that the case was the first time a media outlet has been sued for the maximum 9 million dram since Armenia enacted amendments tripling maximum fines for insult and defamation in 2021.
Aramazd Kiviryan, a lawyer for 168 Hours, told CPJ that insult and defamation claims in Armenia are generally in the range of 100,000 to 500,000 dram (US$258 to $1,292) and while courts occasionally froze media outlets’ assets, they typically involved much smaller sums.
The present freeze poses a significant problem for 168 Hours’ operations, he said. Kiviryan told CPJ that 168 Hours would apply to have the freeze lifted, and if they failed it would remain in place until the court’s final decision on the lawsuit, which could take years.
Sargsyan wrote on Facebook that he relied on previously published materials for his reporting, which Avinyan had not denied at the time. He wrote that he believed the suit aimed “to cause me significant financial damage and thus to keep me silent.”
]]>Provisions in the draft law, On the Legal Regime of Martial Law, previously criticized by CPJ, would grant the Armenian government the power under declaration of martial law to block websites, social media, and internet applications and to enact partial or complete internet shutdowns across the country’s territory.
The letter highlights how the legislation poses a “serious threat to the freedom of expression in Armenia” and represents “an excuse to curtail press freedom.” Internet shutdowns “make it extremely difficult for journalists, the media, and human rights defenders to carry out their work,” and “restricting internet access in any manner disrupts the flow of information and hinders reporting and accountability for human rights abuses,” the letter says.
The full letter can be read here.
]]>On January 6, the public comment period closed for a bill drafted by the Ministry of Justice in late 2022; when the ministry has evaluated those comments, it can decide whether to send the bill to parliament, according to news reports and local press freedom advocates who spoke with CPJ.
In the draft version circulated for public comment in December, the bill empowered authorities under conditions of martial law to temporarily block websites, apps, and social media networks and “partially or completely” restrict internet access in the country. That draft did not specify any restrictions on authorities’ ability to take such actions or any way for affected parties to appeal the decisions.
The draft also authorized the government of Armenia—which is involved in a protracted conflict over disputed territory with neighboring Azerbaijan—to intervene in television and internet broadcasting to disseminate information and ensure that films and programs feature “exclusively military patriotic content.”
“The blanket powers of censorship in a bill drafted by Armenia’s Ministry of Justice grant the state far too much discretion to block websites, cut off the country’s internet, and censor news outlets,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Armenian authorities should revise this bill and conduct thorough consultations with media representatives before putting it forward in a new form.”
Artur Papyan, director of the Media Diversity Institute, and Ashot Melikyan, chair of the Committee to Protect Freedom of Speech, two local free speech groups, told CPJ by phone that Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party has a large enough parliamentary majority to pass the bill, but hoped that the Ministry of Justice will consult with media advocacy groups and amend the disputed clauses.
Eleven local press freedom groups, including Papyan and Melikyan’s organizations, published a statement criticizing the draft bill on January 12. Media rights groups are concerned that once a mechanism for blocking websites and the internet is established, authorities will seek to gradually expand its use, Papyan told CPJ.
Papyan and Melikyan said that the broad, unrestricted powers the draft would give the government, coupled with the lack of transparency over decisions, could lead to politically motivated decisions. They said the bill is particularly worrying given the government’s intolerance of criticism during the war in 2020.
During the 2020 Armenia-Azerbaijan war, a temporary government decree prohibited the publication of reports “criticizing” or “questioning the effectiveness” of state actions concerning the conflict, leading to the forced takedown of hundreds of articles and fines issued to more than a dozen news outlets. Authorities also blocked many websites with Azerbaijani and Turkish domain names and the social media app TikTok.
Papyan told CPJ that Armenian authorities struggled to legally justify these blocks at the time, and he believes the current draft law seeks to give them such a justification for the future.
Armenia’s existing martial law allows authorities to confiscate media outlets’ equipment, establish special procedures for journalists’ accreditation, and “restrict freedom of opinion in accordance with the law.”
In July 2022, Armenia’s prosecutor general proposed legislation that would empower the government to block websites, citing the need to censor harmful material such as instructions on committing suicide or selling drugs. The proposal was dropped following criticism by media organizations, Papyan said.
CPJ’s email to the Ministry of Justice did not receive a reply.
]]>On May 25, Armenia’s parliament approved the amendments to the country’s mass media law, according to news reports and an entry on the parliamentary website. Previously, only media outlets could revoke their journalists’ accreditation with state agencies, although amendments last December allowed agencies to deny accreditation.
According to media reports, local press freedom advocates fear that authorities could use the amendments to bar critical journalists from covering parliamentary sessions and other government events. The amendments will take effect when signed by the country’s president, according to Ashot Melikyan, head of the local press advocacy group Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression, who spoke with CPJ by telephone.
“The recent amendments to journalist accreditation regulations are the latest example of Armenia’s departure from international standards in media legislation. Given the country’s highly polarized politics and potential for selective application, these amendments are concerning,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “We urge President Khachaturyan to refrain from ratifying the amendments and call on authorities to work with local press freedom organizations to reform recent restrictive media laws.”
Under the new regulations, state bodies will be able to terminate journalists’ accreditation if they violate the body’s accreditation regulations or “rules of procedure” for a second time within a year after receiving a written warning for a previous violation.
The bill’s authors, two deputies with Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party, have denied that the amendments restrict freedom of the press, stating in parliament that only the accreditation of a specific journalist can be revoked, not media outlets as a whole. They added that outlets would be able to replace any journalist whose accreditation was terminated and argued in parliament and in an explanatory note accompanying the bill that the change was necessitated by “numerous cases” of journalists threatening and insulting parliamentary deputies and “obstructing the activities of both deputies and other journalists.”
Melikyan told CPJ that while a small number of journalists have been guilty of inappropriate behavior, it was wrong to enact laws on this basis, as authorities could use the law as an “instrument of pressure” against the journalistic community. “Today, government organs might object to journalists’ behavior. Later it could be how journalists cover their work,” Melikyan said.
Journalists will be able to appeal decisions on denial and termination of accreditation through the courts, he added but said it remains to be seen how both state organs and the courts will apply the law in practice.
Melikyan described the amendments as the latest “link in the chain of regressive media bills” in Armenia. In July and October 2021, the country recriminalized insult and tripled existing fines for insult and defamation, while parliament banned journalists from entering the legislative chamber without advance permission and limited media interviews to a designated area, as CPJ documented.
CPJ emailed the Parliament of Armenia and the Office of the Prime Minister for comment but did not receive any replies. The Public Relations Department of the President of Armenia replied to CPJ’s emailed request for comment after publication, on June 8, stating that the amendments aim to regulate the work of journalists rather than impose restrictions, that journalists will be warned prior to the termination of their accreditation, and that international organizations have assessed press freedom in Armenia as having improved since the present government came to power in the country’s 2018 revolution.
Editor’s note: The final paragraph has been updated with a reply from the president’s public relations department.
]]>On Monday, May 2, at a protest in the capital, Yerevan, against the country’s policy concerning the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, security officers punched David Fidanyan, a reporter with the news website AntiFake, in the shoulder and tried to push him away as he covered police arresting and beating protesters, according to news reports, a statement by several local media groups, and the journalist, who spoke to CPJ in a phone interview.
Fidanyan said that police officers in black masks repeatedly shoved him while he covered the protests, although he clearly displayed his press card. He said they also shoved AntiFake camera operator Ishkhan Khosrovyan and attempted to detain him, but agreed not to arrest him when other journalists intervened.
Also at that protest, Nare Gevorgyan, a reporter with the local news website MediaHub, approached Sargis Hovhannisyan, head of the country’s State Protection Service security agency, and asked about the police crackdown, according to those news reports, Gevorgyan, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app, and video of the incident published by MediaHub.
Hovhannisyan knocked Gevorgyan’s microphone away, and a State Protection Service officer obstructed MediaHub camera operator Arman Gharajyan, demanded he turn over his camera, and then hit the device; the pair refused, and Hovhannisyan kicked Gharajyan in the leg, according to those sources.
“The use of force against journalists who are doing their jobs is entirely unacceptable, all the more so when perpetrated by police officers and senior officials who have a duty to set an example in their treatment of the media,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Armenian authorities must swiftly investigate all uses of force against journalists covering the ongoing protests and ensure that media workers can do their jobs safely.”
Gevorgyan told CPJ that Gharajyan sustained a minor scratch to his leg during the scuffle and that his camera was slightly damaged. The other journalists were not seriously injured, Gevorgyan and Fidanyan said.
The Armenian prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into Hovhannisyan’s alleged assault of Gharajyan, according to news reports.
After the publication of this article, the National Security Service of Armenia, which oversees the State Protection Service, replied to CPJ’s emailed request for comment stating that the service could not comment on an ongoing investigation.
Previously, on April 26, police officers in Yerevan shoved Tigran Petrosyan, a correspondent with the regional news website Caucasian Knot, as he attempted to film a protest over Nagorno-Karabakh, and prevented him from recording, the journalist told CPJ in a phone interview.
Also, on Wednesday, May 4, Parliamentary Deputy Hayk Sargsyan, with the ruling Civil Contract party, snatched the cell phone of Suzy Badoyan, a reporter with the news website Yerevan Today, when she attempted to interview him in parliament, local media reported.
Sargsyan slightly scratched Badoyan’s hand when he grabbed her phone, and returned it to her shortly afterwards, according to those reports. Last June, Sargsyan similarly grabbed the phone of another journalist attempting to interview him, returning the phone an hour later after deleting the video, according to news reports and a statement by local media rights groups.
CPJ emailed Sargsyan for comment but did not receive any reply.
[Editors’ note: This article has been updated in its ninth paragraph to include the National Security Service’s response to CPJ.]
]]>Under the amendments to the country’s civil code, signed into law last October 11, persons found guilty of insulting and defaming another person will now be fined triple the previous penalty — up to three million Armenian drams (US$6,300) and six million drams (US$12,600) respectively, according to news reports.
The changes to the civil code come after the July 30 introduction of criminal charges for “grave insult,” in which those found guilty of repeatedly “cursing or insulting a person’s dignity in another extremely obscene way” can face up to three months in prison or fines of up to three million drams (US$6,300). Fines for first offenses against government officials and public figures are higher than fines for first offenses against private individuals.
Members of parliament with Pashinyan’s ruling Civil Contract party have defended the measures as necessary to combat disinformation and abusive language online. But press freedom advocates told CPJ they fear the new laws will be used as a tool to clamp down on critical outlets and will lead to self-censorship, especially as lawsuits against the press have sharply increased in number in recent years, according to a study by local press freedom group the Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression.
CPJ emailed the parliament and the press secretary of the Armenian prime minister for comment, but did not receive any replies.
Boris Navasardian, president of Yerevan Press Club, an independent local journalists’ association, told CPJ by telephone that the amendments pose a threat to journalists critical of authorities. The measures are a “transparent attempt to abuse selective justice against journalists and media that are oppositionally minded towards the government,” Navasardian said.
When Pashinyan, himself a former journalist, took power in 2018 after igniting a nonviolent pro-democracy movement known as the “Velvet Revolution,” journalists looked forward to a freer media environment and long overdue reforms. Unlike his predecessor, Serzh Sargsyan, Pashinyan has avoided directly interfering in news coverage and media diversity has increased.
Yet hoped-for reforms – above all in the areas of access to official information and television market liberalization – have failed to materialize. Since coming to power, Pashinyan’s government has had a confrontational relationship with the press, much of which is still owned by individuals close to the former regime, and has shown itself to be increasingly sensitive to criticism following Armenia’s defeat in last year’s Nagorno-Karabakh war.
In August, the parliament banned journalists from entering the legislative chamber without advance permission and limited media interviews of legislators to a designated area only. The authorities also forcefully removed journalists from the parliamentary press room to stop them recording brawls that occurred in parliament on August 24 and 25.
The new legal changes did not pass without debate. The law tripling penalties for insult and defamation was originally adopted by parliament on March 24, but following discussions with journalistic organizations, President Armen Sarkissian referred it to the Constitutional Court to check its constitutionality. On October 5, the court ruled in favor of the bill.
Ashot Melikyan, chairman of Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression, told CPJ by telephone that the new maximum fines entail a real risk of financial collapse for many outlets in Armenia and are likely to lead to increased self-censorship among journalists. The fines are reportedly 30 times the normal monthly salary of an Armenian journalist.
Before he was a politician, Pashinyan himself was on the receiving end of such fines. In 1999, when he was chief editor of the newspaper Oragir, then interior minister Serzh Sargsyan sued the paper for slander.
“The lawsuit resulted in a six-million-dram fine and since they weren’t able to pay it, the newspaper went bankrupt,” Shushan Doydoyan, the head of local NGO Freedom of Information Center, told Eurasianet. “Now they are doing the same thing that was done against them.”
An explanatory note on a draft version of the amendments includes reference to an existing civil code provision to prevent media outlets found guilty of defamation or insult from being fined an amount that would “impede the normal operation of the media outlet,” the note said. Yet both Melikyan and Navasardian expressed concern that courts are not sufficiently independent of the government to guarantee against devastating fines.
On the criminalization of grave insult both Melikyan and Navasardian voiced concern that “grave insult” is not clearly defined and can potentially be used against media outlets. Navasardian said that the inclusion of private individuals as potential complainants is “a trick to cover the real intention to protect [Pashinyan] and his close team members.”
Ruling party MPs originally proposed a third bill banning media outlets from citing anonymous sources, but after criticism from media organizations and the Council of Europe, the human rights body of the European Union, they revised it to make outlets legally responsible for statements published from “unidentified sources,” Melikyan said. The measure is widely thought to be directed against anonymous Telegram channels whose sometimes dubious claims are often reprinted by traditional media, according to news reports.
Melikyan told CPJ that problems of media polarization and disinformation have been acute since the late 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, with opposition outlets linked to the previous regime pushing the boundaries of legitimate journalism. But he said that the “repressive” measures taken by the government are not the way forward. He advocates promoting media self-regulation – through initiatives such as the independent Armenian Media Ethics Observatory and its code of ethics, signed by dozens of media outlets – as well as fact-checking projects and efforts to raise media literacy.
Navasardian agrees, arguing that the government’s moves are only likely to exacerbate media polarization. “When you have such a transparent intention to implement selective justice,” he says, “you will never have a civilized system of media regulation.”
]]>“The killing of journalists Maharram Ibrahimov and Siraj Abishev in the Kalbajar district of Azerbaijan today was a needless tragedy. Armenian authorities should share their landmine maps with the members of the press to ensure that no other journalists become victims in the conflict,” said CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, Gulnoza Said. “We call on all parties in the area to ensure that journalists can do their jobs safely.”
Ibrahimov, a correspondent for the Azerbaijani state news agency AzerTag, and Abishev, a camera operator with the Azerbaijani state broadcaster AzTV, were on assignment while riding in a bus in Kalbajar district, near Nagorno-Karabakh, today when the vehicle hit a landmine, according to multiple news reports and a tweet by Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov.
Both journalists and an Azerbaijani government official were killed in the blast, which also wounded several other passengers including AzTV producer Emil Mammedov, according to those reports, which did not state the extent of Mammedov’s injuries.
Azerbaijan’s military has accused Armenian soldiers of planting landmines in areas previously controlled by Armenian forces, a claim Armenia denies, according to those reports, which described the Armenia-Azerbaijan border area as “one of the most heavily mined regions in the former Soviet Union.”
Last year, at least six journalists were injured in shelling while covering the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as CPJ documented at the time.
[Editors’ note: This article has been updated to correct the location where the journalists were killed.]
]]>On February 23, in Yerevan, the capital, a group of about 20 protesters harassed and assaulted Khulyan, a reporter with Azatutyun, the Armenian service of U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Chilingaryan, a camera operator with the outlet, according to news reports and Khulyan, who spoke with CPJ in a phone interview and posted about the attack on Facebook.
“Armenian authorities should investigate the attack on journalists Artak Khulyan and Karen Chilingaryan, hold those responsible to account, and ensure that journalists can do their jobs safely,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Journalists should be able to cover political events without a fear of being harassed and assaulted, and authorities should take attacks on the press seriously.”
The journalists were broadcasting live from a rally demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, when a group of demonstrators started yelling insults and curse words at them, saying that Azatutyun “will soon be closed down,” according to Khulyan.
Chilingaryan asked those protesters not to interfere with their work, but about five members of that group began punching and kicking Khulyan and Chilingaryan in plain sight of police, and attacked them for about five to 10 minutes before officers intervened and broke up the scuffle, Khulyan said.
The journalists had bruises as a result of that attack, but were not seriously injured and did not need medical assistance, Khulyan told CPJ. The attackers also damaged their equipment, breaking a part of the camera, according to the journalist and reports.
The prosecutor general’s office is “investigating the incident,” according to reports. CPJ emailed that office requesting comment, but did not receive any response.
In November, demonstrators attacked Azatutyun’s offices in Yerevan and assaulted two journalists, as CPJ documented at the time.
]]>Nagorno-Karabakh, located within Azerbaijan’s borders, has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces since a 1994 truce. Fighting again broke out on September 27, with hundreds and possibly thousands killed, according to reports. In the November 9 peace treaty, Armenia ceded certain territories to Azerbaijan.
BBC Russia correspondent Marina Katayeva covered the most intense weeks of fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh. She spoke to CPJ via messaging app on November 8 from Yerevan, the Armenian capital, just after she left the conflict zone, and again on November 12, also from Yerevan, about the challenges of working in war, safety measures for reporters, and the importance of journalistic camaraderie. For security reasons, Katayeva writes under a pseudonym, which CPJ has also used in this interview. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Had you covered conflict before, and how did you decide to cover Nagorno-Karabakh?
I have never covered conflicts before, and my decision to go to Nagorno-Karabakh was dictated by my desire to go into the field, given that for half a year before that I had worked from home [due to COVID-19]. I wanted to finally see people, not just write articles based on phone interviews. Plus, I had been in Armenia before and knew the region.
Can you describe your daily routine while covering the conflict?
My workdays are almost never the same. Planning is almost impossible because the situation is changing daily. But there are some rituals that I start every day with: checking social networks, calling people in the conflict zone whom I want to feature in an article. If the situation hasn’t evolved overnight, I proceed with what I planned for that day – meeting with people, recording interviews. If the road back to the hotel from the location takes a long time, I write the article while still in the car, using the Notes app on my phone.
What do you do to make sure you’re protected?
In our team, everyone has a bulletproof vest and a helmet, and we also brought those for our driver-interpreter. The main protocol is to not take these off if we hear shots or explosions and wear them in the zones where shelling can potentially start. When planning a trip to an area where the conflict is ongoing, we try to find a hotel with a basement. In Stepanakert [the de-facto capital of Nagorno-Karabakh] a couple of times we went to bed fully clothed in case of the nighttime shelling.
How do you find out about safety concerns in a particular area?
You can only learn about safety by calling a specific village or a city where you are going to and by asking the locals. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always work. Shelling can start at any moment; it can catch you in the beginning of your visit or toward its end. Also, you cannot rely entirely upon the local peoples’ safety evaluations, simply because they do not always consider the situation around them dangerous. To any question about safety they would answer that “Everything is good, there is no danger.” And then they would proceed to tell you how the day before a shell had landed in their yard and got stuck in the ground next to an apple tree, unexploded.
What is the most difficult part of covering Nagorno-Karabakh?
As in all conflict zones, the main difficulty is staying safe. It is impossible to guarantee full safety or predict anything here. There is also a question of difference of opinions. It is almost impossible to hear an alternative point of view on the events; it is natural and common for all the war zones, especially when the conflict has to do with the land or the integrity of a state.
You are covering this conflict during a global pandemic. How do you and your team protect yourselves from the virus?
Almost no one thinks about COVID-19 in the immediate proximity to the conflict zone – people who spend nights hiding in basements have different priorities. On the other hand, in Yerevan the rules are very strict: you are obliged to wear a mask in every store or closed space. Police can stop you on the street and ask you to put on a mask. I am going with the flow, so I am not wearing a mask in the conflict zone and I put it on when I leave it.
How has working in Nagorno-Karabakh impacted you personally?
I was most touched by a story of a refugee who had a birthday while he was staying in one of the hotels in Goris [a town in southern Armenia close to the Nagorno-Karabakh border]. The owner of the hotel decided to prepare a surprise for him, having learned that he would be turning 65 years old. She ordered a cake with candles, and when all the refugees gathered together for dinner, she turned the light off in the dining room and brought out that cake, playing loud music. While everyone around was applauding and congratulating him, the man looked at the cake with an empty stare, and all he could say was “Thank you.” Later I spoke with him and his wife, and learned that their sons were at war, and they came from Hadrut [the site of heavy fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh] leaving all their possessions behind, having the time to only grab their documents.
In the duration of the whole work trip to Karabakh, my dominant emotion was sadness. I felt bad for the people who lose their houses, who must spend their days, sometimes weeks hiding in basements. I was sad that the war became routine for them, and that they organized their daily lives with a potential bombing in mind. The saddest thing is not that people complain or cry — I have almost never seen it here — but that they keep quiet or tell me that they are “doing just fine.”
When you are covering a conflict for so long, does the sense of danger eventually diminish?
Some people say that the feeling of danger changes with time, but not for me. Perhaps this is because during this trip I have been responsible not only for myself, but our whole journalistic team. I would not risk their safety, no matter how important of a story I had to cover.
Do journalists covering Nagorno-Karabakh help each other and share information and resources?
Journalists are friendly with each other. Almost everyone crosses each other’s paths in the hotels of Goris or in Karabakh itself, and many get acquainted in the basements in Stepanakert. In these places people forget about competition and try to help each other. Of course, we are all looking for unique characters, unusual stories, and exclusive shots. But there is no animosity among journalists here.
]]>