Disinformation during “Kentron TV” program

On August 28, Urvagits TV program hosted Narek Malyan, ex-adviser of former Chief of Police Vladimir Gasparyan, and active Facebook user Artur Danielyan. Before the revolution, the latter were engaged in the propaganda in favor of Serzh Sargsyan and the Republican Party, and now are engaged in picking on Nikol Pashinyan and his government.

Program host Petros Ghazaryan claimed that Narek and Arthur were not objective, calling them “PR agents”.  In return, Artur said that they are trying to “bring the market to balance”.

“We already have evidence that they call and instruct to remove a sentence from an interview since Pashinyan will not like it”, Artur stated.

“We are talking about Aravot newspaper”, Narek added.

In order to fact-check the statement, we contacted Melania Barseghyan, editor of the Aravot newspaper, who denied this information.

“Such statements do not correspond to reality,” said the editor of the newspaper.

In fact, Narek and Artur not only lied during one of the most popular TV programs of the republic trying to defame the current government, but also used a newspaper’s name to sound credible.

Continuing the topic, Narek announced that the previous authorities were alone in the propaganda field, and now they are alone too, and there has never been any propaganda campaign.

It is worth noting that PanArmenian Media Group belonging to Serzh Sargsyan’s son-in-law, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Armenia to Vatican City, Michael Minasyan, includes ArmeniaTV, A TV, ArmNews, PanArmenia TV stations, Radio Jan and Lav Radio stations, Tert.am, Blognews , Armsport.am websites. Besides, Ararat TV and numerous media outlets belonged to the Republican Party of Armenia. Even the Public TV and Radio were used for party propaganda. Moreover, the previous authorities had a well-coordinated group of bloggers who were engaged in propaganda on the Internet. Propaganda activities were also carried out in kindergartens, schools and universities, district councils and municipalities, army and other state institutions. The previous authorities also used the services of individual propagandists (PR specialists), one of which was Narek Malyan.

 

Anti-Corruption Campaign

However, the disinformation did not end there. The guests of the program announced that no corruption fight is taking place in the country, and “not a single penny has been returned to the budget”. In response to this statement, the host announced that $ 45 million have been returned to the state budget. “I frankly did not know. They have probably also counted the bail money”, Narek replied.

In this respect, it is worth to recall some scandalous disclosures that resulted in the budget recovery of large amount of money.

The National Security Service disclosed a tax evasion scheme at Yerevan City supermarkets as a result of which 7.2 billion AMD in total damage was caused to the state.

Another scandalous disclosure was made at GLG Project Company belonging to Serzh Sragsyan’s brother Levon Sargsyan. It turns out that the company had avoided tax liabilities of about 800 million AMD, which, by the way, was returned voluntarily to the budget. Levon Sargsyan is accused of illegal enrichment and is currently wanted by the Police.

There have also been corruption disclosures at “Robert Taron”, “Davit and Elina”, “Ughegits” companies (1 billion AMD), “Security Dream” company (1 billion AMD), Gyumri Beer Factory (360 million AMD), Spayka company (2 billion AMD), Shirak State University (168 million AMD), a number of schools, public and private institutions.

For more details on the increase of budgetary entries, click here.

 

Judicial System

With regard to the judicial system, the ex-adviser of the former Chief of Police mentioned that it was desecrated, and Nikol Pashinyan was the desecrator, saying “The one who releases killer terrorists desecrates the judicial system.”

It is noteworthy that this person was silent when, for instance, the son of former governor of Syunik Marz went unpunished when all the evidence of his crimes was there.

Regarding the ‘Sasna Tsrer” group, it should be noted that they were not released, their measure of restraint was changed, and the trial is not over yet. And those charged with killing the policemen are still under arrest.

 

Justification of Bribery

Speaking of bribery, Arthur made the most ridiculous statement. He justified bribery in the road police.

“The road police officer receives 8-10 liters of petrol a day. With that amount of petrol you can drive a little in the city and then you are not able to drive. How did it work before? Well, the police officer took the bribe money, filled petrol into the car and continued driving in the city. Now he has a problem with petrol shortage, and does not drive. For that reason, road accidents have increased by 31 percent. In fact, that corruption used to save people’s lives.”

It is not known why the host decided to invite these not so famous people. We can only state that as a result Kentron TV became a platform for spreading disinformation.

 

Rafael Afrikyan