WE HAVE MADE MUCH USE OF SUCH DEVICE
Lilit Poghosyan

Hayots Ashkharh Daily
Oct 23 2007
Armenia

As we see, things are in a very bad situation as far as freedom of
speech is concerned; yet, we don’t seem to care about it. No sooner
had we recovered ourselves from the hue-and-cry around the "total
persecutions" against the press clubs, than the successive evil news
about another violation of freedom of speech was heard. This time
the news came from Gyumri.

GALA TV Company (Independent Information Channel of Gyumri) turned
out to be under pressure, and such pressures, as you guess, are being
made from Yerevan and have strictly political contents. Attempts are
being made to punish Vahan Khachatryan, Head of the TV Company for
dissidence. Moreover, the existence of this brave organization, with
which the TV viewers are, mildly speaking, unfamiliar, is at stake.

Head of the TV Channel complained that some unknown forces were
threatening to close the TV Company.

WHO HAS OFFENDED VAHAN – THE DEFENDER OF FREEDOM OF SPEECH?

And thus, who uses pressure against the owner of GALA and subjects him
to political persecutions without any formalities? In anticipation
of receiving an answer to this fatal question we turned to GRIGOR
AMALYAN, Chairman of the National Commission of Television and Radio.

Perhaps, it is the leadership of the National Commission of
Television and Radio (NCTR) that has "offended" the TV Company
which has been operating in the sphere for just a couple of years
and is just trying to accomplish itself in the given sphere, trying
to become equal with such well-known companies as "Shant" or "Tsayg"
TV Channel of Gyumri. In the meantime, the owner of the TV Company is
engaged in minor entrepreneurial activities, in addition to providing
"independent" information. In particular, he is trying to meet the
sanitary-hygienic needs of his fellow-citizens. In other words,
he is engaged in "soap business" G. Amalyan categorically refuted
any political persecutions against GALA; moreover, he considered the
hypothesis ridiculous.

According to him, "there is no political persecution against GALA by
state agencies and, especially, the Commission. And there couldn’t
have been any, because the TV Company has never stood out in terms
of its political and even civil conduct.

Regrettable though it is, the reality is that people working in the
sphere of television are trying to solve their ‘external’ problems
by advancing pseudo-political motives and presenting themselves as
a target of political persecutions. This is not the first time that
we encounter situations in which entrepreneurs imitate political
activeness and give their problem a political shadow, assuming the
role of a persecuted individual once they have problems with law or
some state agency.

In this way, "they probably hope to win sympathy among the people
and receive the people’s support for settling their problems with
the state and guarding themselves against their regular demands,"
the NCTR Chairman states.

It is especially unacceptable and moreover "immoral when a public
resource that has been granted to a company for protecting public
interests is used by people as a roof for serving their own
interest." Especially considering that this is not the first case
that following the principle ‘my television is my shield’, Vahan
Khachatryan is trying to politicize the problems that have arisen
around his susceptible ‘initiatives’.

"More than a year ago, the Chairman of GALA TV Company again made
a fuss, announcing that he was being persecuted for his political
views. And this happened in a situation when there were absolutely
no political processes and elections in the country. Later it turned
out that all this was related to some quarrel that had arisen between
him and ’02’ periodical, and as a matter of fact, Vahan had a problem
with the law enforcement agencies," G. Amalyan stated.

IS HISOTRY REPEATING ITSELF?

Thus, judging by all, we are again dealing with the phenomenon of
imparting a political shadow to criminal cases. Beginning 1998
this kind of device has much been used in our reality by the
native politicians or the criminal elements who try to appear as
ones. The latter include Ashot Bleyan and Vano Siradeghyan, the
"chief political warden" Moushegh Saghatelyan and the present-day
"persecuted individuals" who wear the crown of a "political prisoner".

With regard to the Chairman of GALA who is reportedly being searched
by the officers of the State Tax Agency, "Hayots Ashkharh" will
try to reveal the heart of the matter. And find out what problems
V. Khachatryan has with the Tax Agency that he decided to spare no
effort in protecting the information freedom of Gyumri inhabitants
against the harsh violations of the well-known or unknown circles
constraining freedom of speech.