ARMENIA MIGHT TERMINATE RADIO LIBERTY REBROADCASTS

Arminfo
27 Jun 07

Yerevan, 27 June: Representatives of a number of opposition parties
have harshly criticized the possible termination of rebroadcasts of
the Armenian Service of Radio Liberty on Armenian Public Radio.

"The Armenian government is taking another anti-democratic step,
which is prompted, and it is not difficult to suppose, by the upcoming
presidential election in the country. They probably want to eliminate
the free zone which is not controlled by them and which is used
by opposition politicians to freely express their positions," the
secretary of the parliamentary faction of the [opposition] Heritage
Party, Stepan Safaryan, said.

The opposition parties not represented in parliament also tend to
view a bill submitted by the government to parliament "on changes to
the law of the Republic of Armenia ‘on TV and radio’" as the desire
of the authorities to deprive the Armenian Service of Radio Liberty
of its airtime for political reasons.

"The case should not be viewed as a legal or judicial matter. This is
a political step ahead of the presidential election in February next
year. The bill proposed by the government is aimed at depriving the
people of the opportunity to receive objective information through
the only electronic medium not controlled by the authorities,"
the secretary of the People’s Party of Armenia, Grigor Harutyunyan,
stressed, expressing the official position of the party.

Representative of the Armenian Pan-National Movement Aram Manukyan
believes that the authorities have never liked the media that show
their weak points in governing the republic, and the forthcoming
presidential election only served as a reason to embark on new and
specific steps to suppress freedom of speech. "Radio Liberty has not
bowed to the authorities, and they want to deprive a wide audience
of the opportunity to receive objective information about the events
in the republic," Manukyan said.

The head of the Alternative public and political movement and
editor-in-chief of Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper, Nikol Pashinyan, was
even more categorical. He described the initiative of the government
as another step directed at establishing an army of unrestrained
dictatorship in Armenia. "When they speak of the necessity not to
provide foreign TV and radio stations with local frequencies, they
should first vacate the two local VHF frequencies used for broadcasting
Russian government TV channels.

The Armenian Service of Radio Liberty, unlike them [the Russian
channels], is broadcast in Armenian. Mostly Armenians work there,
who report on events in our country," Pashinyan said.

During an emergency session today, the National Assembly will discuss
the bill proposed by the government "on changes to the law of the
Republic of Armenia ‘on TV and radio’". It says the reason is that
"the status of the Public TV and Radio Company and its tasks are,
in fact, incompatible with the right to give consent to provide
frequencies to other broadcasters".