Based on Article 6 of the Law on Mass Media (NKR), adopted on October 20, 2004 (Journalist’s Accreditation), on August 15, Marat Yeganyan, Editor-in-Chief of arcakh24.info, applied to the Artsakh Republic Police in order to get accreditation in the given state body. By the way, the application was drafted on-site in order to meet the maximum standards of the given institution.
It should be reminded that the Law on Mass Media contains a whole article on the accreditation of journalists, where the law obliges the state bodies in full force to accredit the journalist within five days.
Please pay particular attention to the fact that the law does not provide for the state body to independently determine the appropriateness of accreditation. In other words, the state body does not determine the expediency of accrediting a journalist; it is already “dictated” by law. From this it can be concluded that the journalist who applied to the state body for accreditation in accordance with the law is not entitled to be denied, which of course is an obstacle to the journalist’s activity.
Incidentally, another case of Artsakh Republic police refusing to accredit a journalist became known.
Is the Head of the Artsakh Republic Police Levon Mnatsakanyan aware of Article 168 of the Criminal Code (hindering the legal professional activity of the Journalist)? It could be assumed, of course, that it was a misunderstanding and that an accidental nuisance had occurred if it had happened for the first time. But unfortunately, this is the style of Levon Mnatsakanyan’s leadership. It is not difficult to remember obstructing the activities of journalist arcakh24.info during the use of force against a person who went on a hunger strike on July 9 of this year, in order to disrupt the recording of a police force incident, which the media had issued a separate statement about.
Once again we remind of Article 168 of the Criminal Code, where the punishment for these cases is a fine, and in some cases (official use of his official position) imprisonment or deprivation of the right to engage in certain activities. It remains only to find out which law enforcement agency is able to put an end to the unlawful acts committed by the Artsakh Republic Police and when the Criminal Code will operate towords the Artsakh Republic Police.
Leave a Reply