YEREVAN – Journalist Nairi Hokhikyan on July 29 was invited to testify before the Armenian National Security Service (NSS), after which his personal cell phone was confiscated.
Hokhikyan told this correspondent that he was told it was necessary to find evidence documenting his publications concerning the recent Artsakh war. He added, “Though I declared the willingness to personally surrender all evidence at my disposal, the NSS found it more appropriate in any case to seize my phone.”
For context, it should be recalled that Hokhikyan some days ago had declared that the recent Artsakh war had been planned by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s regime, along with the surrender of the city of Shushi and the various districts of Artsakh. Along with various other evidence he published, Hokhikyan mentioned a conversation between Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin and Pashinyan’s former press spokesman Vladimir Karapetyan, about which Lapshin partially contradicted Hokhikyan.
To respond to Lapshin, Hokhikyan proposed to publish the conversation, and on July 17 Hokhikyan again suggested this to the blogger. On July 18, Hokhikyan published at ianmedia.am a video with further evidence of the conversation between Lapshin and Karapetyan. On July 19, Hokhikyan published some more materials and on July 22 declared that Armenians had made a grave mistake in trusting Lapshin.
