Sona Haroutyunyan

Affiliated media: 1in.am, Journalist

Incident date: September 26, 2018

Attack type:

• Prosecution for libel, insult, violation of privacy (1)

Who attacked: Non-authorities

Source: Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression

Location: Armenia, Yerevan

Additional information:

On September 26, “News AM” LTD filed a lawsuit against Sona (Sirush) Haroutyunyan, a correspondent from the news site “1in.am” after she linked the “News.am” site to Robert Kocharyan in an article. The founder sought compensation of AMD 200 thousand from the journalist, as well as a retraction, apology and full court decision to be published on her Facebook page. The court ordered the defendant to publish a retraction on Facebook and pay AMD 50 thousand in compensation. On August 20, the defendant appealed, but the appeal was not upheld. The defendant decided not to appeal further and a retraction was published on Facebook.