PanARMENIAN.Net

Freedom House: Armenia Again is Recognized as `Partially Free’ State
18.01.2007 16:40 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ According to the annual report of `Freedom House’
organization, Armenia has entered the group of partially free
states. As director of the organization Chris Walker stated, Armenia
is one of the weakest countries in this group and has closely
approached the boundary, which share `partially free’ and `not free’
states. `It is a reflection of weak indexes in a number of important
spheres, particularly, the situation in the Media, the possibilities
of citizens to participate in political processes,’ stated Chris
Walker to RFE RL. According to Freedom House, in the countries, which
are included in the `partially free’ category, political freedoms and
civil rights are not provided fully. Besides, here most often exist
atmosphere of corruption, on the background of pluralism predominates
one political party, the attributes, which are peculiar to jural
state, are weak. Among tendencies, which lately evoke concerns in
Armenia, Chris Walker underlined the activation of oligarchs. At the
same time he added that Freedom House will closely watch the coming
parliamentarian elections.

Meanwhile, Freedom House has recognized Turkey and Georgia also as
`partially free’ states. But unlike Armenia, these countries in the
sphere of organizing electoral processes have made a step
forward. Turkey and Georgia currently are in the list of `electoral
democracy’. The experts of organization think that Azerbaijan in the
issue of Media freedom experiences regress, and President Ilham
Aliev’s pressure on the Media is being strengthened. The situation in
Azerbaijan is much more lamentable, and this country is included in
the category of `non free’ states, as well as Iran and Russia.