US government is funding website spreading Covid-19 disinformation

The US government is funding a website in Armenia which is spreading disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, including warnings that Armenians ought to “refuse” future vaccine programmes.

The website, Medmedia.am, was launched with the help of a US State Department grant meant to promote democracy, but instead has been used to promote false information about Covid-19, according to an investigation by the British news website openDemocracy.

Among Medmedia’s most popular articles are pieces that have called Covid-19 a “fake pandemic” and falsely reported that a morgue offered to pay hundreds of dollars to a dead patient’s family if they claimed the death had been caused by the coronavirus.

The grant was awarded by the State Department to a group called the Armenian Association of Young Doctors, which launched the website last year and is led by a controversial doctor called Gevorg Grigoryan.

He has been known for his strong criticism of the government’s health ministry and its vaccine programmes, and has a history of anti-LGBT statements, including remarks posted on Facebook in 2014 in which he called for gay people to be burned.

Grigoryan, who has claimed that he is not opposed to vaccinations, has teamed up with a prominent journalist and lawyer, both with reported ties to a far-right party called Veto, to create what they called a public fact-finding group on the government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.

This week, the group’s official Facebook page claimed that the government led by prime minister Nikol Pashinyan, who led a nonviolent reform movement before his election, had “completely failed the fight” against coronavirus. Grigoryan said he was not aligned with a specific political party and denied that Medmedia or the fact-finding project were political fronts aimed at opposing the government.
Armenia has reported about 7,100 coronavirus cases and a rising rate of infections. The country has also grappled with a drop in childhood vaccine rates, which the health minister, Arsen Torosyan, has blamed on anti-vaccine propaganda.

The State Department declined to comment on questions about the size of the grant or its review process.

A post on the US embassy’s website in Armenia said grants under the Democracy Commission Small Grants Program – which are worth up to $50,000 – are awarded on a competitive basis to local NGOs and are meant to focus on issues like transparency and accountability in governance, advancing human rights, eliminating corruption, and enhancing economic growth and development.