Police violence against a journalist documenting a public protest and the sufficiency of domestic investigations into the incident

Facts

The author of the communication is a national of Armenia, and claims that the State party violated his rights under articles 2 (3), 19 and 26 of the Covenant. The author is a freelance journalist who covers mostly political and public interest events for international and regional news agencies. Following an armed attack that resulted in police officers being taken hostage and an officer becoming wounded and killed, supporters of the armed group organized protest actions. The author went to cover one such demonstration, wearing a press badge, and took photographs in a small park nearby among other journalists. A flash-bang grenade was thrown in his direction, and another explosive caused damage to a nearby house. The author alleges that the police noticed him filming this event, and threatened and beat him. The police took his video camera and still camera, and the author’s video camera broke. The Prosecutor General instituted a criminal case relating to violence against journalists and abuse of official authority, and the author was interviewed and granted victim status in the course of the investigation. He states, however, that no other investigative action has been taken at the time of his submission of the complaint, and that there is no effective domestic remedy to challenge inaction in the investigative process within the framework of criminal proceedings.

Admissibility

The Committee declared the communication admissible as to the author’s claims under article 19, read in conjunction with article 2 (3) of the Covenant. The Committee noted that the author did not provide sufficient substantiation of his claim under article 19 of the Covenant alone, so it considered the claims in conjunction with article 2 (3). The Committee further considered that the author had failed to provide sufficient information in support of his claim under article 26, read in conjunction with article 19 of the Covenant, and the claim was therefore inadmissible

Merits

The Committee considered that the author’s claims do not reveal a violation by a State party of article 19 (2), read in conjunction with article 2 (3) of the Covenant. The Committee took into account the State party’s information on the investigative measures that it has conducted and its argument that all possible investigative and operative search measures have been carried out. In addition, the Committee considered the lack of any specific argument from the author as to which investigative steps the State party authorities had failed to conduct. As a result, the Committee could not conclude that the facts revealed a violation of the author’s rights.