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The supporters of the owner of the Fifth Channel Armen Tavadyan held a protest on Wednesday in front of the Prosecutor General's Office, demanding the latter’s immediate release from custody. The protesters held posters reading “Who is the next” and “No to illegal detention.”

“We are here to raise our primary demand to change the detention measure for Tavadyan,” Narek Mutafyan, one of the protesters, told reporters, adding the prosecutors’ decision to use arrest as a detention measure further complicates the situation and unites the supporters in their decisive voice for justice.

The Executive Director at the Fifth Channel Harutyun Harutyunyan, present at the protest, told reporters that Tavadyan’s arrest is not only unlawful but also represents a pressure on the Fifth Channel, adding the charges brought against Tavadyan are fabricated because of his personal relationships with the former president.

To remind, Armenia’s Special Investigation Service (SIS) arrested Tavadyan in December on suspicion of seeking false testimony in favour of Armenia’s jailed former President Robert Kocharyan. At the motion filed by the prosecutors, the Court chose arrest as detention measure for Tavadyan. Later number of media organisations and the journalists of the Fifth Channel issued a statement in connection with the arrest, insisting the criminal prosecution against Tavadyan resembled an act of political vendetta against the businessman for his personal relationships.

The statement said that the arrest of the owner of a TV company was a ‘disgraceful example of phycological and financial pressure exerted on the Fifth Channel.”