TWO LAWS TO ELIMINATE FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE

A1+
[09:24 pm] 25 September, 2006

Tomorrow the NA special session will discuss two draft laws
regulating the Mass Media field which have been processed without the
participation of the concerned sides. Neither are the workers of the
field aware of the content of the laws.

According to specialists, there are a number of provisions in the
drafts about "Amendments to the RA Law on Television and Radio
and Amendments to the RA Regulations of the National Commission on
Television and Radio" which contradict the RA Constitution jeopardizing
freedom of speech. RA NA deputy, author of the present Law on
Television and Radio Shavarsh Kocharyan has also mentioned about it.

"This is a draft which is highly explosive and which will explode
immediately after it is adopted. On the one hand, the authors of
the amendments confirm the "innocence" of the TV channels they own
after which they eliminate the other channels; on the other hand they
privatize the TV and Radio sphere once and for all. From now on all
the outsiders will be excluded from the sphere.

For us, this is another anti-constitutional process which they must not
get away with. This is a peculiar imitation of independent television
and Mass Media; on the one hand private TV Companies (hand-picked
by them, of course) are given licenses, and on the other the whole
field is monopolized by the government.

All this will result in a terrible mess and anarchy inside the
system. This is a document which will become a way of sanction for the
whole TV-Radio field" said Mesrop Movsesyan, head of "A1+" TV Company,
about the new draft amendments.