PROPAGANDA TERROR – NOT SOMETHING NEW
Lilit Poghosyan

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
March 14, 2008

As we know, under the March 1 decree on imposing a state of emergency
in the town of Yerevan, President Robert Kocharyan has, along with
other temporary restrictions, "narrowed’ the scope of the activity
of the media to a certain extent, prohibiting to disseminate false
"information" aimed at destabilizing the situation and arbitrary
"political analyses".

In accordance with the above mentioned, it was particularly prescribed
that the information on state and internal political issues should
be presented in a "pure" form, i.e. in the form of official reports,
without individual comments.

In response to the questions of the journalists, the President promised
the previous day to review the relevant clause of the decree. "In the
framework of the state of emergency, it is prescribed what publications
concerning the internal political situation may be available. The new
decree will prescribe the things that are not allowed to do. And the
restrictions will only apply to the dissemination of provocative and
obviously false information," the President said.

Considering that no incidents and violations were observed
in connection with the legal regime of the state of emergency,
R. Kocharyan yesterday signed a new decree (as he had promised) on
introducing changes in the decree issued on March 1. Accordingly,
the clause restricting the activity of the media is reworded in the
following manner, "The mass media are prohibited from publishing
and disseminating obviously false information, concerning state
and internal political issues, or any other information aimed at
destabilizing the situation, as well as calls for participating in
unauthorized (unlawful) events".

Time will show to what extent such "mitigation" will contribute to
stabilizing the situation, and to what extent it will allow us to
resist the goal-oriented lie and fraud with the help of which the
propaganda machine of the Armenian Pan-National Movement consistently
and persistently poisoned the people for several years continuously,
sowing total intolerance, hatred and hostility in relation to the
authorities and dissidents in general.

One thing is clear: the "March 1" events wouldn’t have happened had
the authorities tried to call to order the professional falsifiers
who were engaged in "propaganda diversion" against the state under
the cover of freedom of speech, who represented gossips and rumors as
100 percent "reliable information", their own desires – as "analysis"
and the fruits of their own morbid fantasy – as "political prediction".

Was it necessary to declare a state of emergency in the country so as
the media would be offered to mind their own business at last? That’s
to say, to present true information to the public with regard to the
developments taking place in the country, to have an elementary sense
of responsibility, not to tell lies or defame people and to refrain
from turning the events upside down.

After all, the pro-Levon propaganda terror, which intensified after the
elections and, having reached its peak as a results of the incessant
brainwashing continued in Theatrical Square for 9 days, surged a wave
of mass psychosis and developed into a "spontaneous massive violence",
is not something new.

The organized misinformation campaign has always accompanied us after
the 1998 shift of power. The propaganda of hatred, as a political
category, i.e. a tool and a factor of a political confrontation,
became fantastically active after the "October 27" acts, continuously
polluting the atmosphere of public confrontation with the poisonous
manifestations of mutual distrust, suspicion and spite. And today,
it is doing its dirty business from the "underground", ignoring the
restrictions envisaged by the regime of the state of emergency.

Isn’t it accounted for by the fact that instead of subjecting
the liars to liability and thus contributing to the formation of
‘liability institutions’, the law enforcement agencies ignored, for
several years, the obvious misinformation circulating in the press
supporting the Armenian Pan-National Movement and the unfounded
accusations addressed to different people?