Interview with the Head of EU Delegation to Armenia, Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador Piotr Antoni Świtalski
– Yerevan City Council elections were not as active as its campaign. Participant political forces were claiming that Prime Minister Pashinyan was solving the problem of confidence towards the revolution and the new authorities, and his participation in the campaign polarizes the Armenian society into “blacks and whites”. Your comment about this situation.
– What I can hear from the Armenians is that there was too much hate speech, in particular on the internet, on social media, which is, of course, a serious issue and has to be addressed and solved. Armenia is not different from other countries: the rise of hate speech in political campaigns is also a common phenomenon in Europe. European countries try to deal with it, every country in its own way, because the problem is different in every country. This campaign clearly showed that Armenian politicians should look into the regulatory framework, how by protecting the free speech, which is an important principle of democratic society, prevent the negative phenomena of hostile-aggressive propaganda and hate speech. This is a problem, which should be solved by the Armenians nobody will solve it for Armenians.
The European Union can share the experience of other countries, which have faced a similar challenge. We can share the experience of international organizations, including the Council of Europe, which has worked on these issues. But we definitely hope very much that now the new Armenia will overcome one of the challenges to build a new political culture, where the rule of a civilized debate will be respected, where people will be talking substance without attacking personalities, people. However, that’s something, which all European countries face to a different degree. Armenians probably are experiencing it now, because of the fact that free debate was to some extent limited in the past. Now many people interpret freedom as the right to be aggressive, to be hostile, to be insulting, which is not the case. So, you definitely need a public debate and you have to decide yourselves how you want to protect the dignity of people, particularly the dignity of candidates, who run for public offices.
