YEREVAN PRESS CLUB WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
APRIL 3-9, 2009
HIGHLIGHTS:
"PRESS CLUB" CYCLE: HUMAN RIGHTS IN ARMENIA
STATEMENT OF JOURNALISTIC ASSOCIATIONS ON DRAFT AMENDMENTS TO BROADCAST
LEGISLATION
INCIDENT WITH "A1+" JOURNALIST
PUBLICATION OF "ZHAMANAK" DAILY RESUMED
"PRESS CLUB" CYCLE: HUMAN RIGHTS IN ARMENIA
On April 4, another "Press Club" show went on the air of "Yerkir Media" TV
company. The cycle is produced under Yerevan Press Club project, supported
by the Open Society Institute Human Rights and Governance Grants Program.
The guests of the program host, YPC President Boris Navasardian were
Chairwoman of "Transparency International" Anti-Corruption Center Amalia
Kostanian, Chairman of Helsinki Committee of Armenia Avetik Ishkhanian and
correspondent of "Hayots Ashkhar" daily Artur Hovhannisian. The discussion
centered on the human rights in Armenia.
The next "Press Club" show will be aired on "Yerkir Media" on Saturday,
April 11 at 17.40.
STATEMENT OF JOURNALISTIC ASSOCIATIONS ON DRAFT AMENDMENTS TO BROADCAST
LEGISLATION
On April 9, Yerevan Press Club, Internews Media Support NGO, Media Diversity
Institute-Armenia, Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression, "Asparez"
Journalist’s Club and Vanadzor Press Club released a statement on amendments
to broadcast legislation.
"The agenda of the RA National Assembly includes the second hearing of the
package of draft amendments to the RA Laws "On Television and Radio",
"Regulations of the National Commission on Television and Radio",
"Regulations of the RA National Assembly", "On State Duty". Despite the few
improvements against the previous version of the package strongly criticized
by our organizations in the statement of February 3, 2009 (see YPC Weekly
Newsletter, January 30 – February 5, 2009 – Ed. Note), the document, as we
see it, remains far from the demands of the time.
Any legislative initiative on television and radio must today be assessed
from the perspective of solving the four cornerstone problems of the
Armenian broadcast sphere:
– ensuring the independence of the National Commission on Television and
Radio – the body that regulates the activities of TV and radio companies;
– real reformation of the Public TV and Radio Company, inclusion of PTRC in
the field of legal regulation, creation of mechanisms of its responsibility
and accountability to the society;
– formation of new legal conditions of impartial and transparent broadcast
licensing competitions;
– revocation of the ban on allocation of frequencies.
The legislative changes that do not entail basic solutions to the problems
above can be only seen as cosmetic. In this regard the improvement of
certain provisions of the draft law package on broadcasting, proposed for
the second hearing by the RA National Assembly, are nothing but a reform
imitation and do not in any way contribute to overcoming the total control
of the authorities over the TV and radio air in Armenia.
As a main argument to support the package its authors refer to the positive
assessment of the Council of Europe expert. Meanwhile, the CE assessment,
while phrased in a very polite and cautious manner, contains criticism of a
number of important clauses of the drafts. In particular, this document
clearly states the absence of due guarantees to the independence of the
National Commission on Television and Radio and the Council of Public TV and
Radio Company, as well as about the incompliance of the PTRC structure to
the internationally accepted standards of good governance.
Even if one shares the satisfaction of the CE expert with most of the
remaining provisions of the package, the two mentioned shortcomings,
referring to the cornerstone issues of the broadcasting legislation, render
the voting of the RA NA deputies for the package questionable. What is the
value of amendments to the RA Law "On Television and Radio", if they do not
call for a basic review of the mechanisms permanently criticized over the
past 12 years, ever since the debate of the broadcast legislation started?
It is quite surprising that the Council of Europe expert, assessing the
package of the draft law on regulating the broadcasting, overlooked the
recommendations of the Resolutions of the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe 1532 (2007), 1609 (2008), 1620 (2008) and 1643 (2009).
Addressing the issues of Armenia’s compliance with its commitments to the
Council of Europe and functioning of democratic institutions in the country,
these Resolutions, proceeding from the political situation in the country,
define the agenda of reforms, also with regard to media. The recommendations
raise the issues of independence of the regulatory body, the transparency of
broadcast licensing competitions, and the possibility of "A1+" TV company
taking part in them, the ban on frequency allocation. Considering the draft
package without taking into account the four most recent PACE
recommendations on Armenia, the Council of Europe expert, on the one hand,
actually overlooked some questionable provisions of the legislation in force
(first of all, the ban on frequency allocation), and on the other – assessed
a whole number of legislative innovations without taking into account the
problematic practices of late (transparency and impartiality of broadcast
licensing competitions).
The expert welcomes the expansion of Article 50 of the RA Law "On Television
and Radio" that call for the provision of "full reasons" to the applicants
that were refused a license. A reference is made here to the judgment of the
European Court of Human Rights of June 17, 2008 on the case of "A1+" TV
company founder, "Meltex" LLC. Yet, in essence, the new draft law proposes
nothing new with regard to justification of license refusal, the mechanisms
of defining criteria that NCTR members should be guided with during the
assessment of the applications are still not prescribed.
One could have quoted a number of other examples of the insufficiently
thorough analysis of the draft law package by CE expert. Yet the problem
lies not with the particularities, but with the technique that the media
legislation is being shaped with in Armenia. Despite the fact that a working
group of local experts is set up adjacently to the specialized standing
committee of the National Assembly, the recent drafts have not been
discussed with this working group. The international experts meet and
discuss drafts only with their authors or MPs interested in the draft
promotion. Objections, comments, clarifications as to the problems of
practical applications of certain clauses that the representatives of
Armenian media community could share, public debate – all this is of no
interest to any one for a long time already. Such closed process of
legislation formation cannot yield other results than the ones we have
today.
Meanwhile, when the authorities are interested to promote certain
initiative, even if extremely unprofessional in its development, it is
immediately in the limelight of attention, debate is raised about it on all
TV channels. A vivid example of this is the draft law on introducing new
provisions to the Civil Code, stipulating moral damage compensation, that
has made so much noise lately. The vehement endorsement of this initiative
can be hardly regarded as anything other than an attempt to divert the
public attention from real problems in media, obstruction of efforts of
journalistic organizations in legislation and media self-regulation.
Unfortunately, such red herrings have been used more than once and run
contrary to the policy of strengthening civil society as declared by the RA
authorities.
Proceeding from this, we call on the RA National Assembly:
1. To revoke from circulation the package of draft laws on broadcasting and
to come back to it after thorough review and improvement in accordance with
the international commitments of Armenia and the suggestions of the working
group at the RA National Assembly Standing Committee on Science, Education,
Culture, Youth and Sport Issues. Otherwise we see no point in further
participation in the working group and shall call back our representatives
from it;
2. To immediately include a draft law on abolishing the ban on holding
broadcast licensing competitions in the agenda of the National Assembly. To
refuse from the idea of digitalization at the expense of free competition
and media plurality. To hold open debate of the TV and radio broadcast
digitalization program;
3. To delay the initiatives related to new forms of journalistic liability
for defamation until the completion of processes aimed at improving the
broadcast legislation, guaranteeing true public service broadcasting,
pluralistic private TV and radio, media accountability system formation. The
attempts of prioritizing the issue of legal liability of journalists
damaging the development of civilized media market will be viewed by us to
be directed at the restriction of free expression in Armenia", the statement
of six journalistic associations says.
INCIDENT WITH "A1+" JOURNALIST
On April 8, at 19.30, during protest action of opposition supporters on
Yerevan’s Northern Avenue an incident happened with "A1+" TV journalist
David Jalalian. "A1+" informed YPC that police officers attacked the
journalist, when he was trying to photograph the actions taken by police
against the protesters. Upon his return to "A1+" editorial office, the
condition of David Jalalian grew worse. He was taken to hospital, where he
received ambulatory treatment. Currently the journalist is home.
PUBLICATION OF "ZHAMANAK" DAILY RESUMED
On April 4, after three days of interruption the publication of "Zhamanak"
daily was resumed. The issuance of the daily was stopped on April 1, as
reported, due to technical problems. On April 2 six journalists and
Executive Editor of "Zhamanak" Suren Sureniants resigned because of the
disagreements with the Chief Editor Arman Babajanian about the expenses for
the daily issue. As it has been reported, at this moment Arman Babajanian
serves a sentence at a penitentiary. Arman Babajanian was convicted on 2006
to 3.5 years of imprisonment for document fraud to evade mandatory military
service.
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Editor of YPC Newsletter – Elina POGHOSBEKIAN
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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
