One cracked jokes: “The “Edo” secret structure is discovered inside the PAP”. I would like to notify the young readers: the remark refers to the ARF “Dro” structure discovered in 1994, which became the basis for suspending the activities of this Party and persecuting the Dashnak members. Here, of course, the wet and dry are mixed up because the “Dro” members really committed murders, for which some of them are still imprisoned. It’s another issue that after the trials, there was no reason to keep the entire Party and its newspapers under banning for years. Later on, we also come across to similar phenomena. For example, when the members of Stepan Demirchyan’s political party were massively subjected to administrative detention. Or, Ter-Petrosyan’s followers were persecuted.
Today’s situation is somewhat reminiscent of all these stories. To be honest, I have no doubt that some of PAP party members truly carry weapons illegally, truly do not pay taxes, truly keep different kind of “dens”, truly is ready to smash the nose and face of people whom they do not like. There are no violin tutors in this “mass”, all of them are “good guys.” But the same, if not more, can be said about some masses of the RPA Party members. There should be no selective justice.
Yet, there are substantial differences. When the current big democrat Robert Kocharyan had closed “A1+”, almost all the media, instead of expressing support to this closed TV channel, issued a joint statement asserting that there are no problems with freedom of the press in Armenia. Because they were afraid that the second president would deface them. Now, if, let’s assume, Serzh Sargsyan closes the “Kentron” TV channel (I hope it will not happen), it seems to me that very few media would welcome this move. The society have changed, there is no atmosphere of fear. And it’s positive.
When a censorship was introduced by the command of the same “democrat” dated from March 1-20, 2008, and the media were imposed to report only the official point of view (in fact, the current “democrats”, including prominent members of the PAP were expressing this very opinion), “Aravot” and other normal media did not work. If now (God forbid) something like this happens, we again will not be able to work. Not because we love PAP very much, but because we are sure that if the opinion of only one side is presented, then we deal not with the media, but the propaganda instrument.
But nowadays, closing newspapers and TV companies has no sense in particular, because more than half of the population of Armenia can use the Internet. We live in a new era.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
