ARMENIA 2008
A1+
[03:38 pm] 10 February, 2009
Harassment of journalists and self-censorship among the news media
intensified before and after a flawed February 2008 presidential
election. The country’s authoritarian president, Robert Kocharian,
imposed a state of emergency after the balloting to suppress
demonstrations and block independent news reporting, a move that
allowed him to deliver the presidency to a hand-picked successor,
Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan.
In early year, authorities sought to ensure that news coverage
supported Sargsyan’s candidacy. In the weeks ahead of the February
19 vote, most of the country’s state and private media followed the
lead of H1 state television by praising Sargsyan and criticizing
Levon Ter-Petrosian, the leading opposition candidate who served as
the first post-Soviet president from 1991 to 1998. Armenian State
Radio stopped rebroadcasts of Armenian-language news programs from the
U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Only
residents of the capital, Yerevan, and several regional cities had
regular access to alternative sources of information, such as the
Web site of the A1+ news agency.
Sargsyan won the election with 52 percent of the vote. But observers
from the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Co-operation
in Europe–a pan-European human rights monitoring group–found
the process marred by voting irregularities and ballot-counting
abuses. Two journalists–Hovsep Hovsepian of A1+ and Lusine Barsegian
of the Yerevan daily Haikakan Zhamanak–were assaulted and robbed
by unidentified people when they attempted to document abuses at a
polling station in Yerevan.
Tens of thousands of Ter-Petrosian’s supporters peacefully protested
in central Yerevan after reports of electoral fraud emerged. After
a week of demonstrations–and statements from several influential
government officials in support of the opposition candidate–Kocharian
declared a 20-day state of emergency on March 1, banning all public
rallies and independent news reporting. The order placed Ter-Petrosian
under virtual house arrest as police cordoned off his home and barred
visitors. Hundreds of police officers moved in to violently disperse
demonstrators in central Yerevan. Gagik Shamshian, a photojournalist
for the daily Aravot and the weekly Chorrord Ishkhanutyun, and Artak
Egiazarian, a reporter with the Yerevan daily Aik, were roughed up
by police and detained for several hours, according to local press
reports.
The state of emergency required news media to cite only official
sources when reporting on national politics, an edict that opened
the way for authorities to crack down aggressively on independent
media. Authorities banned three private radio stations–Radio Yerevan,
Radio Hay, and Ardzagank Radio–from broadcasting news from RFE/RL. The
private television station ArmNews, which carried CNN and Euronews
programming, interrupted reports on Armenia with commercials. Security
officers were stationed at printing presses to censor newspapers,
while authorities ordered Internet service providers to block access
to the Web sites of A1+, RFE/RL, the independent newspapers Aravot
and Haikakan Zhamanak, and YouTube (where demonstrators had posted
homemade videos of police violence).
The harsh media restrictions and widespread public fear made
independent reporting nearly impossible. "I tried just speaking to
people informally, but they refused to speak with me, saying they’re
afraid of being persecuted by the authorities," said Karine Simonian,
an RFE/RL journalist in the northern city of Vanadzor.
The news vacuum allowed pro-government information and propaganda
to dominate the airwaves as the Supreme Court rejected two cases
challenging Sargsyan’s electoral victory. A March 13 decree, signed by
Kocharian, allowed journalists to return to work only if they did not
report "obviously false or destabilizing information" about domestic
politics. When the state of emergency expired on March 21, access
to most Internet sites was restored and newspapers were allowed to
resume publishing. But police continued to harass opposition activists
and journalists reporting on opposition rallies; local authorities
in Gyumri shuttered Gala TV in retaliation for its critical news
reporting. The crackdown allowed Sargsyan to be sworn into office
on April 9, despite widespread public discontent over the conduct of
the elections.
Regulation of broadcast media remained highly politicized thanks to
government loyalists serving on the National Council on Television
and Radio (NCTR). Journalists with A1+, a one-time broadcaster that
transformed itself into an Internet-based news agency, know that
better than most. The NCTR revoked the broadcast license of A1+
in 2002 because of the station’s critical reporting and has since
rejected a dozen applications filed by the news agency. In June 2008,
the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights ruled that the
NCTR’s repeated denials without explanation had violated the European
Convention on Human Rights. The court instructed the government to
pay the station 20,000 euros (US$31,000) in damages.
The government responded by delaying payment of the fine and
by drafting an amendment to the Law on Radio and Television that
effectively froze television licensing until 2010, according to local
press reports. In September, the amendment was approved by parliament
and signed by the president, preventing A1+ from participating in
any new television license tenders.
The prosecutor general’s office selectively enforced the law,
punishing critical journalists while failing to prosecute attacks
against the press. Haikakan Zhamanak’s Barsegian was hospitalized
with a concussion in August after being attacked by two unidentified
assailants. Barsegian had just written several articles critical of
government supporters. In November, three assailants beat prominent
investigative journalist Edik Baghdasarian, editor of the news magazine
Hetq, as he was walking on a Yerevan street. His most recent reports
concerned corruption in the mining industry. No arrests were reported
in the attacks. Arman Babadzhanian, editor of Zhamanak Yerevan,
remained imprisoned during 2008 after being convicted in 2006 of
forging documents to avoid military service. His four-year sentence
was widely seen as excessive and given in retaliation for a 2006
article criticizing the prosecutor general.