Human Rights Defender of Armenia Kristinne Grigoryan is lying and targeting media outlets
Today the Office of the Human Rights Defender of Armenia posted the following note against 168.am media outlet on the official Facebook page of the Human Rights Defender of Armenia and attached a targeted, defamatory and guiding image. The note of Human Rights Defender Kristinne Grigoryan reads as follows:
Today the specified media outlet published false information under the title “The Human Rights Defender of Armenia Refused To Deal With The Issues Of Persons Displaced From Hadrut, Guiding Them Towards The Authorities Of Artsakh”.
On July 7, 2022, the Staff of the Defender hosted a meeting with persons who were forcefully displaced from Artsakh to Armenia in consequence of the war that Azerbaijan unleashed in 2020, including with President of For Hadrut NGO Levon Hayriyan and citizen of the Republic of Armenia Ashot Harutyunyan.
Both systemic issues and individual matters related to the Armenians of Artsakh were discussed during the meeting.
The Staff of the Defender is in constant contact with the representatives of the persons raising this problem, including with “the participant of the demonstration” who was referred to in the published material.
The Defender is also in constant communication with the Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Artsakh.
A study on the systemic issues and individual matters and the possible solutions to those issues is being conducted by the Staff of the Defender through an established procedure.
We wish those in charge of the media outlet health.”
In response to this, Editor-in-Chief of 168.am, President of the Union of Journalists of Armenia Satik Seyranyan issued a statement which reads as follows:
“Human Rights Defender of Armenia Kristinne Grigoryan is lying and targeting media outlets
Instead of fulfilling her essential duties, Human Rights Defender Kristinne Grigoryan is involved in blatant defamation by organizing a hate-mongering campaign against the opposition press, and this fits into the anti-democratic agenda of the incumbent authorities and certain non-governmental organizations that stand close to the authorities.
Today, by targeting 168.am, this woman accused 168.am of disseminating false information and used the official Facebook page of the Human Rights Defender of Armenia to disseminate that defamation and aspersion in a specifically ironic way that is not appropriate for a state official. This concerns the republication — by our media outlet — of one of the articles of the “Pastinfo” news website in which 168.am has made, in good faith, a reference to the original source. If the woman read the article in its entirety, perhaps she would understand that 168.am is not the author of the material. What’s more, let us inform this woman that the original source website also had not made up anything, but rather it had transmitted the remarks of a specific person, whose photo has even been made public (the links are attached). Kristinne Grigoryan was not idle and even attached an image that defamed and targeted the media outlet once more; with this, the Human Rights Defender, who is directly responsible for showing respect to media outlets, is also hurting — with her ironic labeling — the good reputation and dignity of 168.am, which has thousands and thousands of readers.
The Human Rights Defender fulfills her official duties and reads the news so superficially and illiterately that she does not even have a perception of what the original source of the information is.
This proves once again that the position of Human Rights Defender, which is the most important position, is held by a person whose objective is to protect the rights of one particular person — Nikol Pashinyan, not human rights. However, great disappointment awaits her since the press will not tolerate such dirt cheap modus operandi and manipulative manifestations, just like it has not tolerated the policy targeted at restrictions on free speech which is led by the political force that turned Kristinne Grigoryan into the Human Rights Defender.
We wish this woman eyesight and the elementary ability to read.”
