Malta Star, Malta
April 14 2006

Gina arrives in Moscow

maltastar.com team 14 April 2007

Early on Saturday morning, Gina Khachatryan, the Armenian journalist
who fled her country in 2003, left Malta after a brief stop at the
airport during her `unwanted’ repatriation voyage from England.

The journalist, along with her husband and their five year old
daughter, were deported from the UK on Friday 13 April. They had been
in England as asylum seekers for five years. The Home Office’s
decision to deport Gina and her family is being opposed by numerous
human right groups in the UK, because of the risk that they will be
imprisoned or persecuted for political motives. In 2003, Gina had
fled Armenia after spending 40 days in a local prison for allegedly
uncovering evidence of electoral fraud during the elections of the
same year.

maltastar.com is informed that Gina arrived in Moscow, the Russian
capital, on Saturday, on board an Air Malta flight, and was expected
to be taken to Armenia during the same day.

Friday’s short stay in Malta was Gina’s second time in the country.
She had been to Malta for 10 days right after escaping from Armenia.
Yet she never applied for asylum in Malta, and opted to try her luck
in the UK.

Throughout Thursday and Friday, maltastar.com and other Maltese
journalists, including members of the Journalist’s Committee, along
with a Maltese lawyer whose identity remained unknown, and the Peace
Lab, tried to maintain contact with Gina, and assist her in her
attempt to stop the deportation process. The efforts followed similar
efforts by other organisations in the UK, including Castaways, in
Bury, and the national media ethics awareness group Media Wise.

In the last minute, Gina chose to continue her deportation voyage as
ordered by British authorities.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress