Hakob Karapetyan is a journalist working in Yerevan.

On April 23, Karapetyan was beaten, his camera ripped from his hands and the film destroyed during a campaign rally organized by current Yerevan Mayor Taron Margaryan. Margaryan, a member of the ruling Republican Party, is seeking re-election to the post.

The police are still conducting an investigation of the incident and it is not clear whether criminal charges will be brought against the perpetrators.

Karapetyan, a reporter for the www.ilur.am news site, says that he showed up a half hour early to a Republican Party campaign rally in the Nor Nork #7 District.

“Groups of school kids were arriving and I went to ask them some questions. They said that at school they were told that a concert would take place and that they should go,” said Karapetyan, noting that the kids were not only from the seventh district but also from the sixth and eighth.

Karapetyan photographed the festive table set up in the courtyard and the #11 public taxi filled with balloons. The van had the campaign slogan of the Republican Party emblazoned on it.

A young man approached the reporter and asked what was he recording and when did he plan to leave.

“Then another guy wearing a red jacket approached. He took a much more aggressive tone and asked what I was photographing. I told him I was a reporter and I referred to the law, arguing that I had every right to be there. The guy told me to get lost and photograph the trees and flowers. I responded that I was photographing that which I saw. He retorted that they would use their own laws and treat me accordingly,” recounts Karapetyan.

The reporter says he then turned the camera on the guy’s friends and asked that they identify him.

“When I started filming the others they started to push me and hit my hands so that the camera would fall. Another guy in a blue jacket, who was coordinating the arrival of the mayor, approached as well. He then started to ask who I was and what I was filming. ‘Hey you revolutionaries, haven’t you caused enough harm?’ he said and then hit me in the face,” recounts Karapetyan, who was filming all the time this took place. Later one of the guys was able to strip the camera from him and destroy the film.

“My glasses fell and my shirt was ripped. There was a crowd of around 100 there but no one did a thing to help. They didn’t even bring water so I could clean the blood from my face,” says Karapetyan, adding that a top police official stood calmly to the side.

“I went to the official, a major, and asked where my glasses were. He told me not to worry and that the crime squad would soon arrive. A woman named Rouzan came up to me and started to scold me. ‘Why are you causing trouble? All of us were here and heard no insults directed against you.’ When the campaign got underway, that same woman took the microphone, declaring that the residents of Nork wanted Taron Margaryan to serve another five years as mayor.

Police Major	Woman named Rouzan

Karapetyan was advised by the Jrvezh Police to report the incident to one of the cops at the scene. The reporter refused. He’s says he doesn’t trust them.

Karapetyan also says that he remained at the campaign rally and none of the cops approached him during the entire forty minutes.

His camera was finally, without the film, returned after campaign officials intervened.

Karapetyan again started to film and caught the guy who had hit him.

The culprit has been identified as Ashot Papayan, a current member of the Yerevan Municipal Council and a member of the Republican Party.

Papayan is also seeking re-election to the Council on the Republican Party ticket.

The reporter also filmed a man named Armen who was involved in the ruckus. It turns out that the man is Armen Harutyunyan, who heads the Yerevan Municipality’s Department of Development and Investment.

But, it seems that the police are dragging their heels. The waited four hours to take Karapetyan’s account of the incident.

Just an hour ago, the Police Department issued a statement saying that Yerevan Police Chief Ashot Karapetyan had launched an internal investigation of the incident and that the findings were forwarded to RA Police Chief Vladimir Gasparyan.

Based on the findings, Vladimir Gasparyan has taken disciplinary action against the policeman on the scene who failed to intervene during the incident and issued a warning, The policeman’s direct superior was issued a “strict warning”, and the deputy of the Nor Nork Police Unit was dismissed.

P.S. Hetq has not been able to get in touch with Ashot Papayan

Photo: Hakob Karapetyan’s Facebook page.