ArmInfo.On May 4, independent MP Gevorg Petrosyan proposed to introduce criminal punishment for officials for disseminating false information. As the parliamentarian noted, many state officials today misinform the public, lie in the most shameless way. By providing for criminal liability for such activities, according to Petrosyan, it will be possible to prevent "the activities of such liars."
"I propose to envisage punishment for lying on the part of government officials. For example, Artsrun Hovhannisyan (during the war in Artsakh, he was the official representative of the Armenian Defense Ministry and provided information on military operations on a daily basis, speaking with the slogan" We will win ", Ed. note), who lied for 43 days of the war, saying that we would win, but then it turned out that we were losing, "Petrosyan said, stressing that the bill is not tailored to a specific person.
Sisak Gabrielyan, a representative of the relevant parliamentary commission, noted in response that even now, "in a certain sense" there is a similar provision in the Criminal Code. At the same time, he recalled that all parliamentarians are also carriers of state secrets, but cannot disclose it. "If, for example, a journalist sends us a question, then we must either disclose classified information and be under the article about its disclosure, or lie and be under the article about the presentation of false information," Gabrielyan said. As a result, the legislative initiative was rejected, and the bill was not included in the agenda of parliamentary discussions.