YEREVAN. –  Yerevan Municipality is blocking the advertisement of Robert Kocharyan’s book, Life and Freedom. This was announced at Tuesday’s joint press conference by Bagrat Mikoyan, coordinator of the office of Armenia’s second President, and attorney Aleksandr Kochubayev.

In Mikoyan’s words, the process of petitioning to Yerevan city hall for advertising authorization has been going on for about half a year.

And Kochubayev, in turn, said it was back in April that they had petitioned to the municipality for the authorization to advertise this book.

“I’m astonished at what is happening in the municipality, regarding the issue of administration,” the attorney added, in particular.

He said it turned out that the petition was submitted at the end of April, but the city hall has neither denied nor approved the petition to this day, and even though the fee has been paid, there is no progress.

Since the respective deadlines set by law have passed and the state agency—in this case, the municipality—is still inactive, under the same law, the petitioner receives the right to advertise, regardless of any further actions by the municipality, the attorney stated.

At the same time, since the company that holds the copyrights to this book plans to act in accordance with the law in the future, too, it expects the same from the Yerevan Municipality, and asks the latter to provide a document that authorizes the advertising of this book.

The company representatives are ready to give 24 hours for the providing of this document. Otherwise, the attorney will file a petition with the Administrative Court, on Wednesday afternoon.