The presentation of the bilingual – Armenian and English – book Violence, Pressure and Legal Cases Against Journalists and Mass Media in 2010-2011: Cases and Analyses took place at Urbat (Friday) Club today. The book was published by the Investigative Journalists NGO with the support of the OSCE Yerevan Office and presents the state of press and freedom of speech in Armenia. As democratization program officer of the OSCE Yerevan Office Oliver McCoy stated during a conversation with journalists this book provided a sound basis for assessing the challenges to freedom of press and speech in Armenia, “In particular, investigative journalism is required in Armenia, since it guarantees transparency for establishing democracy.” The book is comprised of two sections; Journalists and Mass Media in the Court and Violence, which respectively present the legal cases related to journalists and violence and exploitation against journalists. “The goal of more than 30 legal cases was to restrain the freedom of speech, since petitioners had the opportunity to get a financial compensation, which was in most cases satisfied to the highest extent,” said Lianna Sayadyan, the editor of the handbook and a member of the Investigative Journalists NGO and added that its main conclusion was that courts had adopted the stick policy against press. As for cases of violence, the editor stated that in 2010 and 2011 9 and 5 cases of violence respectively had been registered, “Those grow especially in the pre-election period. Almost all serious crimes against journalists have not been solved.”
The section Violence includes analyses of Lusine Hakobyan, the head of theEurope in Law Association NGO. The latter stated that the cases of violence against journalists had decreased, whereas there were some drawbacks in the legal system, “Courts assess the publications of mass media insofar as their facts correspond to the reality, but one should look at a publication from the commonsense perspective. Besides, only the first publication is assessed, whereas one should pay attention to the following process too.”
The lawyer observed that a progress was made at the end of the year; on November 15, 2011, theConstitutional Courtruled that courts should employ the principles of the European Court of Human Rights case law, including the principle of wider limits for critique of social and political figures.
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Louse SUKIASYAN
