ArmInfo News Agency (in Russian), Armenia
Aug 22 2008

Armenian ministry says opposition paper report "misinformation"

Yerevan, 22 August: The Armenian Ministry of Justice has called on the
media to refrain from disseminating unverified information.

[Opposition] Aravot newspaper today published an article headlined
"Threatened with elimination" which explicitly contained
misinformation saying that [the editor-in-chief of the opposition
newspaper Zhamanak Yerevan] Arman Babajanyan, who is currently
remanded in custody, had allegedly passed a video recording to Aravot
newspaper, the press secretary of the Armenian Ministry of Justice,
Lana Mshetsyan, told Arminfo today.

The video allegedly showed some criminals committing sexual violence
against a convict and, at the same time, allegedly threatening to do
the same against Babajanyan.

According to the statement of the Ministry of Justice, this
"information" published in Aravot newspaper is the result of colourful
imagination, and Babajanyan has already expressed his fair resentment
and demanded through the prison administration that Aravot newspaper
publish a denial.