On October 22, at the meeting with Armenia’s Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan, OSCE Representative on Freedom of Media Dunja Mijatović stressed that she highly appreciates the intensive collaboration with Armenia. She added that Armenia has passed a long way in the provision of freedom of speech and welcomed the measures undertaken by the Government in that area, also assuring that the expert support of her office would continue. But the press release of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not include the part of Mijatović’s speech, in which she says, “It is time that the authorities of Armenia provide the promised reforms, which refer to broadcasting legislation directed at the promotion of pluralism.” We asked Levon Barseghyan, Chairman of Gyumri Journalists club “Arena”, whether we can conclude from this statement that the OSCE is unhappy with the degree of freedom of the media in Armenia. Mr. Barseghyan responded, “It is their opinion that they are not happy, and it is not news. The mass media of Armenia is assessed not free by Freedom House since 2003 after shut down of A1+ and “Noyyan Tapan” broadcasts. TV and radio broadcasting in Armenia was to be digitalized, because increase of TV-Radio frequency is going on in the whole world. As a result, TV-Radio frequency was to be increased, whereas it lowered in our case. Also, the process of digitization has been frozen, it was decided to make the transition as of January 1, 2015, but due to recent amendments in the law, the authorities of Armenia postponed it for half a year.” Levon Barseghyan also reminded the issue of restoration of violated right of A1+, “Frequency was not provided as a restoration of A1+, just a new tender was announced. Merging of a number of groups of TV-radio system under one umbrella, obscurity of individuals and owners, the fact that the public does not know to whom the companies using TV-radio frequency belong, what is the percentage of the share of the owners, the fact that this year two journalists were dismissed from work for the comments in the Facebook that were hard to the palate of the owners and the editors. These are the facts that shows the mass media of being unfree. Accordingly, we should normalize our problems independently, the authorities of Armenia are not affected by the ideas of this-or-that foreign official, even if they receive large grants from Europe or the United States.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
