Monday, May 13 2024 17:30

ArmInfo.The Union of Journalists of Armenia (UJA) strongly condemns all police brutality  against journalists carrying out their professional activities, calls on the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to restrain the instincts of its employees, and the Investigative Committee to stop the practice of applying double standards. This is stated in the statement of the UJA.

As the source notes: "Today, at the call of Archbishop Bagrat  Galstanyan, the leader of the "Tavush for the Motherland" popular  movement, the head of the Diocese of Tavush, the police used  unprecedented brutal force against the citizens who were carrying out  peaceful disobedience actions and not only against them. People were  even detained from the sidewalks.  Once again, the police did not  hesitate to use violence against journalists performing their  professional work.  Thus, ABC Media cameraman Mher Davtyan was pushed  by one of the police officers, then, seeing that the latter fell on  the stairs, he left without looking back, and on Tumanyan Street,  several officers of the special police platoon (red berets), as well  as a policeman of the patrol service used violence against 24News.am  journalist Mary Manukyan, as a result of which she fainted and was  taken to the hospital.

Naturally, the Investigative Committee, which is so attentive to any  attempt to "hinder" the professional work of journalists operating in  the office of the ruling power and pro-government media in general,  and initiates criminal proceedings immediately, did not spread any  news about the mentioned cases.

It is noteworthy that the editorial staff of 24News.am has legitimate  doubts about the attack of the red berets being directed on the  journalist on, about which they made a public statement.

The Union of Journalists of Armenia strongly condemns all brutal  attempts of police against journalists performing their professional  work, we urge the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to  restrain the instincts of their employees, and the Investigative  Committee to end the practice of applying double standards.

The journalists must do their job in any situation, and the police  must ensure the smooth implementation of a journalist's professional  activity without restricting it, especially without using brute force  against the journalist.

The Union of Journalists of Armenia also strongly condemns all kinds  of manifestations of hate speech, calling on both sides to refrain  from such reprehensible speech and targeting displayed on social  networks and in their speeches.  We urge international journalistic  and human rights organizations and institutions to focus on the  behavior of police officers towards journalists and to give objective  evaluations," the UJA statement reads.