YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 15, NOYAN TAPAN. The RA Ombudsman Office will conduct studies in the European Court of Human Rights (Strasbourg) in order to fund out if the sentence passed on Arman Babajanian, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Zhamanak Yerevan", was in line with European precedent law on fair trial. The RA Ombudsman Armen Harutyunian stated at the September 14 press conference that the European precedent law related to other spheres will be studied as well. In his opinion, 4 years' imprisonment was a severe punishment. A. Harutyunian said that after returning from Strasbourg, he will make a statement about the editor's case. To recap, the above mentioned court ruling was made based on charges of military service evasion and document forgery. The RA Ombudsman noted that the in the past 5-6 months, acts of violence against reporters seem to have become a system." Nevertheless, these instances of violence, as well as the cases when innocent citizens became victims of street settlement of old scores should not make one arrive at the conclusion that the society and the freedom of speech are not protected. He expressed an opinion that such cases are indicative that the protection of the society and citizens shows "dangerous tendencies" to decline.

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