ARMENIAN PRIVATE TV FAILS TO SHOW PROGRAMME FEATURING OPPOSITION CANDIDATE
Haykakan Zhamanak, Yerevan
9 May 07, p 2
Text of unattributed report in Armenian newspaper Haykakan Zhamanak
on 9 May entitled "They are hindering"
After the leader of the [opposition] News Times party [NTP], Aram
Karapetyan, spoke on Public TV about the activity of the leader of the
Prosperous Armenia party, Gagik Tsarukyan, and tried to prove through
facts that businessman Tsarukyan works closely with the Karabakh clan,
Karapetyan and his party were denied access to Kentron TV. This TV
company belongs to Gagik Tsarukyan.
According to the NTP press service, the government reacted to the
Public TV broadcast by directly interfering and preventing the 7 May
"Urvagits" [Armenian: Outline] programme on Kentron TV from being
broadcast. According to preliminary agreement, the former deputy
national security minister, Gurgen Eghiazaryan, who is the third in
the proportional list of the NTP, was to have participated in the
programme. The NTP said that [Armenian President] Robert Kocharyan
personally ordered that the broadcast should be banned, and the
process was led by Kocharyan’s press secretary Viktor Soghomonyan.