Panorama.am

20:05 01/12/06

PARTNERSHIP FOR OPEN SOCIETY INITIATIVE LAUNCHES DISCUSSION

About 60 public organizations and government
representatives participated in a discussion organized
by Partnership for Open Society imitative. All the
comparisons between Armenia and Europe brought to the
idea that Armenia is far from Europe.

The participants discussed seven topics, among them
human rights and basic freedoms; mass media and
freedom of speech, formation of information society;
combat against corruption; reforms in judicial system;
reforms in social system and comparison of the EU new
neighborhood plan with Armenia, Azerbaijan and
Georgia.

Avet Ishkhanyan, head of Helsinki Committee of
Armenia, pointed out that violations of property
rights are among the basic violations of human rights
in Armenia. He pointed out that the law on alienation
of property for public and state needs has many errors
and does not comply with the international norms.

President of Yerevan Press Club, Boris Navasardyan,
complained about the composition of the National
Committee on TV and Radio. According to the
constitution, 50% of the committee is appointed by the
president of the republic and the remaining 50% is
appointed by the parliament where the issues are
solved by the ruling coalition. It turns out that all
political and public entities are not equally
represented in the committee. `This is against
European democratic norms,’ Navasardyan said.

Varujan Oktanyan, vice president of the Armenian
representation of Transparency International, said
Armenia ensures corresponding legal field but in real
life corruption risks are not down but go up.
/Panorama.am/