Armenia: tax officials beat journalists of "Gala" channel

Operative officers of the Tax Service of Armenia have beaten journalists and broken TV cameras in the studio of the "Gala" TV Channel in the city of Gyumri.

The employees of the TV studio have explained that the Tax Service made their raid after the Channel had been instructed to stop informing the televiewers about the opposition meeting on October 26 in support of the nominee Levon Ter-Petrosyan, ex-President of Armenia, at the presidential elections to be held in 2008, the "Gazeta.Ru" informs.

The "Arminfo" Agency reports that on October 23, Nikol Pashinyan and Shoger Matevosyan, editors-in-chief of the newspapers "Aikakan Zhamanak" and "4 Ishkhanutyun" respectively, were beaten and detained by the police.

According to Vaagn Ayotsyan, executive secretary of the board of the AOD Organization, the verbal skirmish between journalists and policemen in the centre of Yerevan stemmed from the latter's demand to give them the megaphone by means of which the opposition activists informed the population about the meeting of a number of oppositional forces planned for October 26 with participation of the first President of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan.

We remind you that, as the "Caucasian Knot" informed earlier, in the evening on October 26, at the meeting of the opposition Levon Ter-Petrosyan announced his nomination for the post of the President of Armenia. Mr Ter-Petrosyan also severely criticised the current authorities of the country for their pursued socio-economic, home and foreign policies and accused the authorities of setting up the atmosphere of impunity in the country, indicating to the necessity not to admit the reproduction of the ruling regime. By different estimates, the meeting was from 50,000 to 70,000-strong.