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Armenia - 2004 Annual report

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  • Armenia - 2004 Annual report

    Reporters without borders, France
    May 3 2004

    Armenia - 2004 Annual report

    Armenia

    Area : 29,800 sq.km.
    Population : 3,072,000.
    Language : Armenian, Russian
    Type of state : republic
    Head of state : Robert Kocharian.

    Armenia - 2004 Annual report

    Many violations of press freedom occurred during the reelection of
    President Robert Kocharian. A new law on freedom of information was
    enacted but a new press law drew strong protests from the media.


    President Robert Kocharian was reelected president in 2003 after a vote
    (the first since the country joined the Council of Europe in 2001) that
    was marred by irregularities and sharply criticised by observers from
    the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). For the
    first time in the history of independent Armenia, a TV debate between
    two of the candidates was shown live. But coverage of the two-stage
    voting on 19 February and 5 March was obstructed in many places and
    independent media journalists were harassed, set upon and physically
    attacked.
    State-run media did not give balanced coverage to all candidates and
    openly backed Kocharian, while most independent media supported other
    candidates. The two independent TV stations, A1+ and Noyan Tapan, whose
    operating licences were cancelled in 2002 by the National Broadcasting
    Commission, were unable to broadcast. The commission is not independent
    and does not meet Council of Europe standards because all its members
    are appointed by the president.
    Conflicting measures were passed by parliament. A freedom of
    information law was adopted on 23 September after two years of work
    with Council of Europe experts and national and international NGOs. It
    spelled out the rights of journalists and citizens to information and
    required public bodies to supply it. But a few days later, parliament
    approved on first reading a controversial press law that provoked sharp
    reaction from the media, who said they would suggest detailed
    improvements to it. The new criminal code that came into force on 1
    August, included prison terms of up to three years for defamation.

    New information on a journalist killed in 2002

    The trial of 13 people accused of killing Tigran Naghdalian, head of
    the council of public TV and radio, in Yerevan on 28 December 2002,
    opened on 29 July 2003. They included businessman Armen Sarkisian, who
    is the brother of two former prime ministers (opposed to Kocharian) -
    Aram Sarkisian and Vazgen Sarkisian, who was killed in a commando
    attack on the parliament building in October 1999. The public
    prosecutor suspected Armen, who had been held since 15 March, of
    ordering the murder because he believed the journalist was involved in
    the attack that killed his brother. The other brother, Aram, charged
    that Armen's trial was a bid to discredit the opposition in the run-up
    to the parliamentary and presidential elections. Naghdalian, a major
    supporter of the president and a key figure at the TV station since
    1998, was shot dead in front of his parents' home by a mystery gunman.
    The authorities immediately called the murder political because the
    journalist had often criticised the opposition in a current affairs
    programme he presented.


    Five journalists physically attacked

    During the first round of the presidential election on 19 February
    2003, an official at the Nar-Dos School polling station 356/16 in
    Yerevan seized the camera and injured the hand of freelance journalist
    Susanna Pogosian, who was there with reporter Gideon Lichfield of the
    British weekly The Economist.
    The same day, Goar Verziryan, of the opposition National Democratic
    Union's weekly paper Aizhm, was thrown against a wall at the
    Shirvanzade School polling station in Yerevan by people who seized a
    tape recording she was making about defects in the voting procedure.
    Others hit two journalists from the TV station Shant and took away
    their videotapes as they were filming a man putting several voting
    slips into a ballot box.
    Mher Galechian, of the twice-weekly opposition paper Chorrord
    Ishxanutiun, was beaten up on 29 April by two men who came to the
    paper's offices in Yerevan. He was hospitalised with head injuries and
    an investigation was launched. The men had come to the offices three
    days earlier to complain about a 25 April article that accused Karlos
    Petrosian, head of the state security service, of building himself a
    villa in shady circumstances. The day of the attack, the paper had
    printed an article reporting the earlier visit.
    Gayaneh Mukoyan (editor) and Rafael Hovakimyan (managing editor) of the
    weekly Or, were attacked in front of Mukoyan's home by four thugs who
    boxed in their car, said they were police, ordered them to get out and
    then hit them. Ms Mukoyan said the attack was probably linked to
    articles the previous month about organised crime.


    New information about a journalist attacked in 2002

    Investigative journalist Mark Grigorian, former correspondent in
    Armenia for Reporters Without Borders and deputy head of the Caucasus
    Media Institute, received a letter from the prosecutor-general's office
    in late February 2003 saying the case file on a grenade attack that
    seriously wounded him in a street of the capital on 22 October 2002 had
    been closed since no suspect had been found four months after the
    attack. Grigorian had blamed the attempt to kill him on people opposed
    to his enquiry into the 27 October 1999 commando attack on parliament,
    in which eight people were killed.


    A journalist threatened

    Freelance journalist Vahagn Ghukasian announced on 24 January 2003 he
    was leaving the country because of police harassment after he found
    "definitive proof" that top officials were involved in the October 1999
    commando attack on parliament. He later left the country.

    Harassment and obstruction

    The central elections board refused to accredit any online media during
    the two-stage presidential and parliamentary elections in February,
    March and May 2003. It had ruled on 22 August 2002 that only media
    registered with the justice ministry could be recognised. But since
    websites are not legally considered media, online newspapers are not
    obliged to register.
    Lilit Vardanian, an official of polling station 073/26 in Eshmiadzin
    (20 km from Yerevan), refused to allow Karina Asatrian, of the
    independent TV station A1+, and her cameraman Robert Kharazian to film
    the first round of voting in the presidential election on 19 February.
    The journalists were then attacked by people who damaged their camera
    and chased them out of the polling station.
    Diana Markosian, also of A1+, was stopped the same day by the head of
    polling station 0391/17 in Yerevan, Ararat Rshtubi. Police helped him
    remove the journalist.
    Relay transmission of the Russian station NTV by the firm Paradise was
    suspended between 26 February and 17 March, officially for technical
    reasons. But opposition activists suspected it was cut off because the
    station had shown opposition demonstrations against election
    irregularities.
    Nane Adjemyan, of the TV station Kentron TV, was victimised in late
    February because President Kocharian's campaign officials did not like
    her impartial coverage of the campaign. After she reported on a press
    conference by opposition candidate Stepan Dermichian, who highlighted
    violations of election rules, the station's news editor, Nikolaļ
    Grigorian, asked the journalist to take some time off. When she found
    out that one of Kocharian's election team had earlier called the
    station management to complain about her coverage, she resigned on 26
    February.
    Only two state-run TV cameramen were allowed to film live Kocharian's
    swearing-in for another term as president on 9 April. All other
    journalists, pro-government or independent, were forced to cover it
    from a TV screen elsewhere in the building.
    Parliament amended the criminal code on 18 April to further restrict
    press freedom. Articles 135 (defamation) and 136 (insults) now provide
    up to three years imprisonment and fines equivalent to between 100 and
    200 times a person's minimum monthly salary (between 750 and 1,500
    euros). Article 318 calls for two years in prison and a fine equal to
    between 200 and 400 minimum salaries (between 1,500 and 3,000 euros).
    The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), along
    with diplomats, human rights organisations and journalists, sent an
    open letter of concern on 19 June to the new spokesman for parliament,
    Arthur Baghdasarian, who said on 25 June the code should be amended
    because it was unfair that penalties for defaming government officials
    and ordinary citizens were different. But no action had been taken by
    the end of the year.
    Officials of the state telecommunications authority in Alarverdi (Lori
    region) cut off broadcasts of the local TV station Ankyun+3 on 20 May
    officially because it had not complied with technical requirements and
    not broadcast government programmes. The station's editor, Hrachya
    Papinyan, said the cut-off came five days before parliamentary
    elections and was for political reasons, since the station had not
    supported candidate Hovhannes Qochinyan, brother of the regional
    administrator. A week earlier, tax officials began inspecting the
    station's accounts. It was able to resume broadcasting on 21 May.
    The National Broadcasting Commission refused once again, on 18 July, to
    grant operating licences to the country's two main independent TV
    stations, A1+ and Noyan Tapan, after bids had been received for
    frequencies to serve the Yerevan region, on grounds that their
    programme proposals were not good enough. The two general-interest
    stations, which provide a balanced alternative to pro-government and
    state-run stations, have not been able to broadcast since 2 April 2002,
    when the commission refused to renew their licences. They had also been
    unsuccessful in an earlier round of bidding for seven-year licences.
    Police seized a videotape on 30 July from ALM TV cameraman Narek
    Martirosyan, who had just filmed them roughing up a woman who had been
    demonstrating in front of the presidential palace in Yerevan.
    Parliament approved on first reading on 24 September a controversial
    new press law, which obliges media to declare their funding sources
    (article 13) and limits the shareholding in them of commercial
    companies and foreigners and restricts the distribution of foreign
    newspapers in the country (article 9).
    These clauses were seen by journalists as weapons for the government to
    use against media it did not like. The law also curbs press freedom in
    time of war, if there is a threat to national security and if a state
    of emergency is declared. The new law drew strong reactions from
    several journalists' organisations, which decided to suggest amendments
    to the measure.



    Reporters Without Borders defends imprisoned journalists and press
    freedom throughout the world, as well as the right to inform the public
    and to be informed, in accordance with Article 19 of the Universal
    Declaration of Human Rights. Reporters Without Borders has nine
    national sections (in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain,
    Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom), representatives in
    Abidjan, Bangkok, Istanbul, Montreal, Moscow, New York, Tokyo and
    Washington and more than a hundred correspondents worldwide.
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