Pages

Saturday 11 April 2009

Armenian pro-opposition blogger detained?

UPDATE: Aramazd has now been released, his notebook was 'detained'. New developments, if any, in comments section below.

I assume it's him. This is the only news that came out, as of now. Aramazd Ghalamkaryan is opposition activist. His blog is at http://aramazd.livejournal.com/.

He is also managing http://www.nikol.am/ website.

Via Hetq Online:

Apartments of Nikol Pashinyan’s Friends Searched
[ 2009/04/11 14:15 ]
important society

Today, employees of the Special Inspection Service (SIS), searched the apartments of Aramazd Gharamkalyan and Karo Simidyan and took the two men down to the SIS offices. Mr. Simidyan’s computer was also “brought in” for questioning. “Hetq” was informed of this news by the HAK (Armenian National Congress) headquarters.

In turns out that Karo Simidyan’s son is a friend of Nikol Pashinyan, chief editor of the “Haykakan Zhamanak” newspaper, who has been in hiding ever since the March 1st events of 2008. HAK also believes that Aramazd Gharamkalyan was also detained because he too is a close friend of Pashinyan.

“Hetq” hasn’t ben able to get through to the SIS for comment. Vahe Kostanyan, the SIS press secretary told “Hetq” that he had been dismissed from his job one month ago and that the post has yet to be filled.

9 comments:

Onnik Krikorian said...

Being friends with someone is not enough to be detained. Called in for questioning, perhaps, but this is ridiculous. Mika, keep us updated.

And what's this crap about the SIS press secretary. He was fired without a replacement waiting in the wings. Wonderful...

artmika said...

Very weird. I hope we'll know more soon.

Anonymous said...

Aramazd has been released but his notebook is still "arrested".

Anonymous said...

In Armenia everything is possible Onnik, you should know this better than anyone.

artmika said...

Thanks for info. Guys, keep posted on developments, if any, thanks.

BSW said...

Next is probably detaining everyone who dares to read pro-opposition blogs...

Anonymous said...

Ghalamkaryan. The last name was misspelled.

Also, the his and his wife's mobile phones were confiscated.

artmika said...

Thanks for correction, I thought so too, but since Hetq posted it that way, I decided to follow it, but now amended his surname on my part of the post.

Anonymous said...

the little dictatorship has gone mad and loose... with such an authoritarian regime, it's marionette's will do anything absurd to supress the people's movement