The RA Criminal Code provides criminal liability in case of preventing legal professional activity of a journalist.
According to the Criminal Code prevention of the professional legal activity of a journalist or forcing the journalist to disseminate information or to not to disseminate information is punished by a fine in the amount of two hundred fold to four hundred fold of minimum wage.
The same actions, which are committed by an official abusing the official position, are punished by a fine in the amount of four hundredfold to seven hundredfold of minimum wage or by imprisonment of maximum 2 years, by deprivation of the right to hold certain posts or practice certain activities for up to 3 years, or without that.
The actions provided by the Law, which were committed using violence or threat dangerous for life or health of a journalist or a close relative is punished with 3 to 7 years of imprisonment.
By the way, we should mention, that according to Article 3 of the RA Law on Dissemination of Mass Information, a journalist is a natural person implementing media activities, a representative of an implementer of media activities who based on a labor contract or another contract with them seeks, gathers, receives, prepares or edits the information.
