Aravot, Armenia
April 3 2009

Staff replaced again

The daily newspaper Zamanak Yerevan (Yerevan Times) has not come out
for a second day today. Of course, there have been rumours among
journalists that the newspaper staff have some disagreements with the
newspaper’s founder and editor-in-chief, currently detainee Arman
Babadjanyan, and therefore, they have boycotted the publication of the
newspaper.

Yesterday [2 April] Suren Surenyants, editor of Zamanak-Yerevan and a
member of the political board of the Hanrapetutyun (Republic) party,
confirmed this report. He said that the entire editorial staff, except
for one person whom they could not get in touch with, had resigned. It
is difficult to say why all the appointed editors cannot get along
with the editor-in-chief or vice versa. There have been different
reasons for the replacement of editors so far. Surenyants gave his own
clarifications. He said that they had submitted their resignation
because "the staff could not cope with undoable tasks set by
Babadjanyan. In one day he raised the issue of journalists’ dismissal
and suspension of the editor’s authorities. There was an impression
that he constantly made up reasons to spoil the working environment in
the editorial office, being aware that his suggestions would raise
discontent of the staff. We made attempts to resolve the existing
problems with him through negotiations, but without success,"
Surenyants said in an interview with Aravot.

We asked if Babadjanyan, except the abovementioned suggestions, had
had any objections related to the newspaper materials. The already
former editor of Zamanak-Yerevan newspaper gave a negative response,
but added: "His reservations were very artificial. This leads me to
think that this way he tried to conceal the real reason for his
dissatisfaction".