Artsakh Human Rights Defender responds to police chief`s verbal  attack against journalist 

ArmInfo.Artsakh Human Rights Defender Gegham Stepanyan responded to the attacks by the head of the  Tavush regional police department, Colonel Arthur Mkrtchyan, against the Artsakh journalist.

Mkrtchyan, during protests in the village of Kirants, the territory  of which the authorities are unilaterally handing over to Azerbaijan  in violation of RA legislation, in response to the remark of an  Artsakh journalist that the same thing would happen to the residents  of this community as what happened to 120 thousand Armenians of  Artsakh, suddenly asked him The question is where is he from? Having  received a response from Artsakh, Mkrtchyan stated cynically: "Why  didn't you stay there? Why did you leave Artsakh?"

Reacting to these attacks by Mkrtchyan, the Human Rights Commissioner  of Artsakh drew attention to the fact that the question "Why did you  leave Artsakh?", which the head of the Tavush police asked  photojournalist David Ghagramanyan, is not an ordinary question that  is asked during a constructive dialogue.

"This is a question that is asked in a situation where they  deliberately try to insult a citizen of Artsakh who is already  suffering from the pain of losing his homeland, when they try to say  that Armenia is not your homeland and you have no right to speak.  They do this deliberately, with the aim of causing pain .

Moreover, this policeman is not the only one who asked a similar  question during this time. I am sure that those who ask this question  know the answer very well, and there is no need to once again explain  to them the consequences of the people of Artsakh being under the  control of Azerbaijan.

And if a person decides to ask such a question, having seen the daily  pain of thousands of his fellow countrymen, then no advice or  recommendations will save him from this disgusting abyss of stupidity  and immorality," Stepanyan concluded.