ArmInfo.Armenian Ambassador to Russia Vardan Toghanyan appealed to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation with a demand to start an investigation into the incitement of ethnic hatred, xenophobia and religious intolerance.
''We will not demand a refutation from ''Nezavisimaya Gazeta'', because we consider it blasphemous, savage and criminally punishable - what was in Nezavisimaya Gazeta. First of all, in our opinion, the publishing house, the newspaper, which is a licensed enterprise, is responsible. They have a media license and, in fact, in the opinion of our lawyers, there is a clear violation of the legislation on the media, and this material contains a large bouquet of criminal articles, in connection with which I turned to the Prosecutor General of Russia with a request to start an investigation into the incitement of ethnic hatred, xenophobia, religious intolerance", Toghanyan said in an interview with "Govorit Moskva". The diplomat also doubted the quality of the documents referred to by the author of the article. ''I do not know what kind of archival materials they meant. The special services probably have various materials. It is difficult to say how serious they are, or if they are just delation in exchange for five cents. We know how history is distorted now, not only of the 20th century. And we understand that anything can be found in the archives, and how certain materials in individual cases can be taken and used".
The Ambassador of Armenia added that he applied not only to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, but also to the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor).
''Still, the media in some way is responsible for this or that information. We must proceed from responsibility, understanding that in this case we are talking about ordinary slander, the usual incitement to hatred towards each other. Therefore, I turned to the prosecutor's office - not only me, but also many Armenian public organizations - and, of course, to Roskomnadzor in order to check whether the terms of the media license and the media law were violated>.
The day before, the non-governmental organization "Union of Armenians of Russia" appealed to Nezavisimaya Gazeta with a demand to refute the information in the article <Sumgait Tragedy. How it started and how it was>.
According to Lev Askerov, the author of the article, the instigators of the events of 1988 were the clergy of the Gregorian churches of Baku and Stepanakert, who trained Armenian agitators and fighters.