Where is the end point of “unreal” and the start point of real threat?
19:23, May 28, 2016 | News, Own news
Photo by iravaban.net
On May 25, 2016, L. Abgaryan, judge at Lori marz (region) General Jurisdiction Court, ruled to detain citizen S. B. for a month.
Criminal proceedings were initiated against him under Article 137 of the RA Criminal Code (Threat to murder, to inflict heavy damage to one’s health or to destroy property) based on the crime report, according to which S. B. had uttered threats against other citizens.
S. B.’s interests are protected by attorney Arayik Zalyan, lawyer at HCA Vanadzor. He intends to appeal the Court’s ruling on assigning detention as a preventive measure to the Court of Appeals.
Interestingly enough, in similar situations concerning threats uttered by public officials or deputies, even no criminal proceedings are initiated on the pretext that their words contain “no real threat” as was the case with the threats uttered in 2013 by Khachik Asryan, RA Deputy Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs against RA NA deputy Zaruhi Postanjyan by expressing his conviction about the necessity “to burn her at the stake.”
The same holds true with the incident of 2015 with RA NA deputy Arakel Movsisyan involved who threatened to rape and behead everybody who disseminated by mass media materials compromising RA Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan and his family.
In both cases, the investigating agency decided to reject initiation of criminal proceedings stating that his words did not constitute a real threat of a murder or causing serious damage to health, and there was no real risk for bringing them into action.
We wonder where is the end point of “unreal” and the start point of real threats? Is that boundary determined by party affiliation or position?