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Statement by the Republic of Armenia Police on media reports about the distribution of electoral bribes

During the campaign of the presidential elections Police of the Republic of Armenia continue to implement its powers given by legislation to ensure the legality, prevent and impede the offenses and the voting rights of the citizens against encroachments, as well as the detection of such violations.

Since January 21, 2013 up to now in the framework of electoral processes more than 70 crime reports presented by natural and legal entities and media have been implemented and are currently being implemented controlling actions through daily work of police.

In recent days quite intensive information concerning bribe distribution to voters in different settlements or residential districts of the Republic of Armenia has spread in the media and various social sites. The appropriate subdivisions of Police of the Republic of Armenia immediately responded to those reports and in maximum short time have undertaken all legal measures to verify the authenticity of the facts in the reports.

As a result of inspections envisaged by legal procedures the majority of cases turned out to be not verified information or inaccurate rumors, as well as the result of assumption of reporting people, or the information has been general without concrete facts or has not contained reasonable data about individuals. In various cases the reporting people have refused to provide materials confirming their report or in other way cooperate with competent authorities.

Thus, resident of the village of Oshakan, Aragatsotn region, Hrant Mkrtchyan during his meeting with a presidential candidate has announced that in their village AMD 5,000 is distributed as a bribe, though further in response to police officers’ request, he insisted that there had not been such a case in their village and that he had heard about the bribe from general conversations.

Regarding cases of not cooperating with police, in this respect it is worth to mention the examples of the journalists of Asparez Journalists’ Club and Gala TV company, when the individuals who declare about the distribution of bribe in the social networks or on TV later refused to provide materials or other information about the cases they mentioned to law enforcement authorities.

Police of the Republic of Armenia highly appreciating the activity of our citizens, media, civil society institutes and their efforts to maintain the requirements of the legislation as well as to detect the violations, call on everyone to mention concrete or certain facts in the reports concerning any offences including the events of distribution of an electoral bribe as well as to cooperate with police to verify the credibility of the information or the legality of the sources of such information, after providing such reports.

In all cases Police of the Republic of Armenia will continue to undertake all legal and necessary measures within its competence in order to ensure the legitimacy of the electoral processes, expecting the support and cooperation of the individuals, media, non-governmental organizations and political parties.