In the early morning of May 16 in Vanadzor the Volkswagen owned by the Executive Director of “Lori” TV company Narineh Avetisian was stoned. The glasses of the car were broken. In the opinion of Narineh Avetisian, the incident can be related to the talk show aired in the evening of May 15 on “Lori” TV under the project “Isolated Civilization”, implemented by the Vanadzor Office of Helsinki Citizens Assembly. The program was dealing with the problems of Vanadzor residents, living in the temporary dwellings in one of the city areas, in particular, their eviction process and the sale of the land lots at low prices and with no auctioning. The TV show gave floor to the representatives of the local administration and the residents themselves. As YPC was told by Narineh Avetisian, after the talk show was over its organizers stayed in the studio for a discussion, which ended after midnight. Going then out into the street they found the journalist’s car damaged. The two other cars standing by were intact. Narineh Avetisian also noted that the investigation of the incident was started by Vanadzor City Police Division.
As it has been reported, three months ago another incident had happened to the head of “Lori” TV. On February 23 she was insulted by the owner of two routes of the city microbuses. The discontent of the entrepreneur was raised by the persistence of the TV company to raise on its air the issue of ungrounded fare raises in the city transport (see details in YPC Weekly Newsletter, February 24 – March 2, 2006). According to Narineh Avetisian, the entrepreneur was summoned to the police for a confrontation and, as far as she knows, this is how the investigation ended.
