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At July 30 extraordinary session, the Parliament debated in the first reading the package of draft laws on Making Addendum to the RA Criminal Code and on Making Addendum to the RA Criminal Procedure Code. The NA deputies gave speeches related to the legislative package.

Nikolay Baghdasaryan: “I have said many times that I am in favor of criminalizing an offense towards certain entities who have been targeted by indecent individuals, but the formulations in the legislative package do not reach the purpose. It is not clear why when the same insult is voiced against the Human Rights Defender or a Judge, we keep it in the Criminal Code, but against the MPs or a member of the Government – not.”

Gevorg Papoyan: “We are talking about, in essence, not about an offense, but about the criminalization of the swearing. I think that these are quite different realities. Swearing should never be confused with freedom of speech. So, I am completely in favor of the draft.”

Sergey Bagratyan: “In my opinion, the amount of a fine should be big, so that a person cannot pay that money and will not even try to think about it. Yes, we should restrain unnecessary and indecent expressions.”

Sofia Hovsepyan: “Some expressions of public will always be, this law cannot restrain. The swearing provided by the Criminal Code will not be. We should change it through education, we should teach the generations that the swearing is not part of any ethical norm.”

Vladimir Vardanyan: “Swearing has always been punished in Armenia. If in the past people swore in front of persons and it was punished then it became online in the field of social media, pervasive, mediated transferable through fake pages. We should understand if we want to end this situation or not.”