OUR COUNTRY RANKED 101ST IN FREEDOM OF PRESS 2005 REPORT
By Ruzan Poghosian

AZG Armenian Daily
26/10/2006

According to the rating elaborated by "Reporters without Borders"
organization, Armenia is ranked 101st among 107 countries, behind
not only Georgia (99), but also Turkey (98). Particularly, this year
Armenia managed to institute a number of suits against journalists
and deserved the criticism of the European structures.

In the South Caucasus, the freedom of mass media sources is sharply
violated in Azerbaijan (141st). The murder of independent journalist
Elmar Husseynov in March testifies to the violence and harassment
applied against the journalists. Meanwhile, gradually, the attacks
on press freedom increase in the course of the pre-election activities.

Russia occupies the 138th place, Ukraine – 112th, Tajikistan –
114th, Khyrghyzia – 111th, Kazakhstan – 119th. The highest level of
press freedom is observed in Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Island, the
Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland. The situation with press freedom
is the worst in Eritrea, Turkmenistan, and Northern Korea. The USA
ranks the 53rd in the list because of George Bush’s statement that
any journalists who dares to cast doubts on the justice of "the war
against terrorism" will be suspected, as well as because of the right
of federal courts to demand sources of information from the media.

The organization applied to various journalists, experts, foreign
mass media sources, urging them to inform about all kinds of cases
of violence or limitations applied against the journalists and the
freedom of speech.

Elsa Vidal, Head of CIS Countries Department, informed that the
Armenian journalists and experts pointed out many cases of violence
against the journalists, particularly, two journalists were threatened
and five were attacked.

According to "Reporters without Borders" organization, Armenia
fixed regress from the viewpoint of the freedom of speech. Thus, in
2003-2004, our country occupied the 90th place in the rating list,
while last year it sharply moved to the 102nd.