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Yerevan Press Club Weekly Newsletter - 07/01/2004

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  • Yerevan Press Club Weekly Newsletter - 07/01/2004

    YEREVAN PRESS CLUB WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

    JUNE 25 - JULY 1, 2004

    HIGHLIGHTS:

    POLITICS AND MEDIA

    "YERRORD UJ" WEEKLY PUBLISHED


    POLITICS AND MEDIA

    On June 29 in Yerevan a seminar "Political Developments in Armenia and Their
    Media Coverage" was held. The seminar was organized by Yerevan Press Club
    with the assistance of Friedrich Naumann Foundation. Representatives of
    media, public, also journalistic organizations of Armenia, international
    structures took part in the event.

    The subject matter of the seminar was pre-conditioned by the events that had
    occurred over the past few months with regard to the activities of Armenian
    media. These are in particular the opposition rallies, accompanied by
    violence against journalists (see details in YPC Weekly Newsletter, April
    2-8, 2004 and April 9-15, 2004), the change of the owner of "Kentron" TV
    company, presently called "Aravot TV" (see YPC Weekly Newsletter, April
    23-29, 2004), the amendments to the RA Criminal Code provisions on libel and
    insult adopted by the parliament recently (see YPC Weekly Newsletter, June
    4-10, 2004) and, finally, the speech that the President of Armenia Robert
    Kocharian made at the PACE session in Strasbourg on June 23, where the
    problems of Armenian media were touched upon too.

    The seminar was opened by Asparuh Panov, the deputy head of programs of
    Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Romania, Bulgaria and South Caucasus. The
    presentation of the Chairman of "Asparez" Journalist's Club of Gyumri Levon
    Barseghian was devoted to the Armenian media reflection of the political
    situation in 2004, and the Chairman of the Committee to Protect Freedom of
    Expression Ashot Melikyan presented the cases of journalist and media rights
    violations through the lens of the inner political developments.

    At the seminar the joint statement of Yerevan Press Club, the Journalists
    Union of Armenia, Internews Armenia public organization and the Committee to
    Protect Freedom of Expression war released, adopted with regard to the June
    trial of the case on the attack on journalists on April 5 (see YPC Weekly
    Newsletter, June 4-10, 2004) and the lack of progress in the investigation
    on other cases of violence against journalists.

    "On June 10, 2004 the court of primary jurisdiction of Center and
    Nork-Marash communities of Yerevan sentenced two people, who engaged in
    violent actions against journalists during the rally of April 5, to a fine
    of 100,000 drams each. The process became a comedy show. We cannot call it
    otherwise, because both the preliminary investigation and the court
    proceedings and the sentence cause doubt and frustration. The proceedings
    were only instituted on Part 1 of Article 185 of the RA Criminal Code
    ("Premeditated destruction or spoilage of property"), whereas the charges
    should have also been introduced on Article 164 ("Obstruction of legitimate
    professional activities of journalist"): the violent actions, committed on
    April 5 with regard to journalists, contain the signs of crimes, stipulated
    by these two Articles of the RA Criminal Code. Therefore, Article 20 of the
    RA Criminal Code ("Cumulative offences") should have been applied which was
    not done by the structure implementing the preliminary investigation. The
    court on its behalf did not correct the mistake of the preliminary
    investigation and did not send the case to additional investigation.

    Neither the bodies of preliminary investigation, nor the court displayed any
    wish to protect the right of journalists to gather and disseminate
    information, to say nothing of the fact that the punishment defined is not
    adequate to the misdeed. Moreover, the supporters of those who committed the
    crime obstructed the entry of journalists to the courtroom and exerted
    pressure on the course of the trial.

    We expected more disclosures and trials to come, however nothing was done to
    find those guilty of other violent acts.

    Up to day no measures have been taken to punish the policemen who were
    impartially observing those who interfered with the work of media
    representatives and broke their equipment on April 5.

    The policemen who gave a beating to journalists on Baghramian Avenue in the
    early morning of April 13 were not revealed and punished either. Not even a
    condemnation of their actions was made. Instead from the highest power
    levels statements were made that it had been impossible to tell journalists
    from the demonstration participants.

    We once more demand that the right of the public to receive and the right of
    the journalists to impart information be respected that any attempt to
    infringe these rights be prevented.

    We call on all the media and journalists be more united and consistent when
    it comes to professional solidarity, when the right to free gathering and
    dissemination of information is violated", the statement by four
    journalistic organizations says.

    The seminar participants noted the disputability of the answers that RA
    President Robert Kocharian gave in Strasbourg to the questions of the PACE
    deputies and journalists with regard to the media situation. In particular,
    the statement of the President that the Law "On Television and Radio" was
    proposed by the opposition was incorrect (apparently Kocharian meant to say
    that the discontent about the work of the National Commission on Television
    and Radio should be addressed by the opposition to itself). The appropriate
    official draft law was developed by the present RA Minister of Education and
    Science and at that time deputy Sergo Yeritsian, who has never had anything
    to do with opposition. Since the draft law of Yeritsian was supported by the
    specialized parliament committee, it was presented by Shavarsh Kocharian as
    a disciplined Chairman of the committee. However, the circumstance that the
    latter at the same time heads one of the opposition parties does not
    constitute sufficient ground to ascribe the authorship of the law to the
    opposition. The proposal of the President to hold a media monitoring in
    Armenia and remove the problem of "A1+" TV company from the agenda, should
    it reveal plurality on TV air and access of opposition to it, also has
    little ground. Firstly, there are reasons to maintain that the failure to
    provide a license to the TV channel has political motivation, that the
    number of competitions seemingly lost by "A1+" were conducted with legal
    violations and the appropriate suit is currently being considered by the
    European Court of Human Rights, and it is hardly fair to link this problem
    with the monitoring results. Secondly, during the presidential and
    parliamentary elections of 2003 (i.e., after the loss of air by "A1+") both
    the OSCE observation mission and a number of local non-governmental
    organizations held monitoring and recorded a generally inobjective coverage
    of the elections by Armenian media. It is the elections and political
    tensions that allow determining the existence of freedom of expression and
    diversity of opinion in the country. During the periods when the political
    developments are proceeding relatively calmly, the count of the air access
    of certain parties cannot be illustrative enough. Monitoring can of course
    be conducted - the media situation analysis and how adequate their coverage
    of public and political life is, the degree of satisfaction of information
    demands of the citizens are always useful. But regardless of its results,
    the problem of "A1+" will remain.

    As the only example of positive changes in the sphere of media recently the
    seminar participants noted the mildened punishments for libel and insult in
    the Criminal Code.

    "YERRORD UJ" WEEKLY PUBLISHED

    On June 26 the first issue of "Yerrord Uj" weekly was published. The
    newspaper has 16/A3 pp. and a print run of 3,000 copies. The founder of
    "Yerrord Uj" is "Mission L", the Chief Editor is Vahram Aghajanian.


    When reprinting or using the information above, reference to the Yerevan
    Press Club is required.

    You are welcome to send any comment and feedback about the Newsletter to:
    [email protected]

    Subscription for the Newsletter is free. To subscribe or unsubscribe from
    this mailing list, please send a message to: [email protected]

    Editor of YPC Newsletter - Elina POGHOSBEKIAN
    ____________________________________________
    Yerevan Press Club
    9B, Ghazar Parpetsi str.
    375007, Yerevan, Armenia
    Tel.: (+ 374 1) 53 00 67; 53 35 41; 53 76 62
    Fax: (+374 1) 53 56 61
    E-mail: [email protected]
    Web Site: www.ypc.am
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