In Armenia, editor-in-chief reports receiving threats

Threats from a social network user were provoked by a caricature of Armenian Defence Minister Vigen Sargsyan, believes Marianna Grigoryan, the editor-in-chief and the director of the news portal "Medialab.am".

A user of the social network Facebook has expressed his dissatisfaction with the publication of the caricature of Armenian Defence Minister Vigen Sargsyan and unambiguously hinted at the fate of the French satirical weekly magazine "Charlie Hebdo". This was told on February 1 to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent by Marianna Grigoryan, the editor-in-chief and the director of the news portal "Medialab.am".

According to her, this is not the first threat to the media resource group, well-known for its political caricatures.

"The comment was as follows: 'Don't you think that you have gone over the line? Be careful not to suffer the fate of the French journalists," Marianna Grigoryan noted.

Nine journalistic organizations of Armenia spoke in defence of their colleagues from the "Medialab.am".

"Considering that they threatened to take revenge in a way analogous to the tragedy of the magazine 'Charlie Hebdo', by the method used by Islamist radicals, we request the General Prosecutor's Office to institute a criminal case and we demand from the Armenian police to ensure the safety of the editorial staff and to identify the person who wrote threats," states the journalists' appeal released on January 31.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.