JOURNALISTS FACED INTOLERANCE AND VIOLENCE IN ARMENIA: CPJ REPORT

news.am
Feb 17 2010
Armenia

The nation remained polarized by the fraud-marred 2008 presidential
election won by Serzh Sargsyan, with large public protests and violent
government reprisals continuing well into 2009.

The global economic crisis caused layoffs in the mining industry and
a decline in remittances from Russia, heightening public frustrations.

The government sought to suppress critical debate over these issues,
and journalists faced intolerance, hostility, and violence," reads
"Attacks on the Press 2009: Armenia" report issued by Committee to
Protect Journalists (CPJ). NEWS.am posts the text.

"The government maintained control over most broadcast media,
the primary news source in a poverty-afflicted country with poor
newspaper distribution and low Internet penetration. The Council
on Public Radio and Television, composed of presidential appointees,
continued to set editorial guidelines for H1 state television, ensuring
the station generated pro-government reports. Most private radio and
television stations were owned by politicians and businessmen with
close ties to the government, leading to significant self-censorship
by journalists and limited critical news reporting on the airwaves,
CPJ research showed.

One independent news outlet remained off the air. In February, a
Yerevan appellate court dismissed lawsuits filed by the media outlet
A1+ that sought reconsideration of its broadcast license applications.

The station, pulled from the airwaves in 2002 in reprisal for its
critical news reports, has seen a dozen license applications rejected
by the government’s broadcast regulator. (A1+ has continued operating
as an independent online news agency.) The Strasbourg-based European
Court of Human Rights ruled in 2008 that the regulator violated
the European Convention on Human Rights by repeatedly rejecting the
applications without explanation.

Other forms of government obstruction were reported on a regular
basis. In January, bailiffs in a Yerevan court prevented journalists
from attending the trial of seven opposition activists charged with
illegal participation in 2008 protests, according to local press
reports. In August, the police chief in the northwestern city of Gyumri
prevented a crew from Shant TV, a private station, from covering
protests in front of the mayor’s office concerning the closing of a
local market, local press reports said. That same month, parliament
issued new media accreditation rules that authorized suspensions of
journalists whose reports &’do not correspond to reality’ or that
disrespect the &’lawful interests, honor, and dignity’ of members of
parliament, according to local press reports.

Parliamentary staff members were given wide discretion to administer
the rules.

Violent attacks against journalists continued amid a climate of
impunity. On March 13, security guards at the State Linguistics
University in Yerevan knocked freelance photographer Gagik Shamshian
to the ground and kicked him after he tried to photograph students
protesting alleged faculty corruption, according to press reports.

Shamshian was hospitalized for six days with internal bleeding. A
security guard was briefly questioned by police but was not charged.

In April, three unidentified assailants attacked Argishti Kivirian,
editor of the independent news Web site Armenia Today, outside his
home in Yerevan, according to press reports. The assailants beat him
with clubs, leaving the editor hospitalized with a concussion and
severe bruising. Kivirian’s colleagues and family linked the attack
to his professional activities, noting that he had received prior
work-related threats. Lusine Sahakaian, a prominent defense lawyer
and the editor’s wife, criticized police for failing to collect
evidence at the crime scene, the U.S. government-funded Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty reported. Armenia Today’s Web site was plagued
by denial-of-service attacks throughout the year–including a series
of attacks that coincided with the assault on Kivirian.

A third attack also generated no arrests and little evident police
investigation. Nver Mnatsakanian, a prominent commentator for Shant
TV, was punched and knocked to the ground by two unidentified men as
he was walking home in Yerevan on the evening of May 6, according to
press reports. Mnatsakanian, who was forced to cancel his show for
two days, criticized police for claiming the attack was the result
of mistaken identity.

Attacks spiked in May, several of them related to a Yerevan mayoral
election that was marred by allegations of fraud. Gohar Vezirian,
a reporter for the opposition newspaper Chorrord Ishkhanutyun, was
beaten by supporters of pro-government candidate Gagik Beglarian
after she informed an election commissioner that the candidate’s
supporters had unlawfully entered a polling station in Yerevan,
according to the news Web site EurasiaNet. Election officials stood by
when pro-government supporters threatened Nelly Gregorian, a reporter
for the independent daily Aravot, confiscated her camera and erased
photos at a polling station in Yerevan, according to the London-based
Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR).

Law enforcement officials were either ambivalent or hostile to the
press. Col. Hovhannes Tamamian, a senior police investigator, told
reporters at a May 8 press conference that police were working hard to
arrest assailants in the attacks–but he suggested journalists should
arm themselves in defense, according to international press reports.

In August, when prosecutors were angered by media criticism of an
investigation into the activities of an outspoken environmental
activist, a spokesman for the prosecutor general warned journalists
that the office &’regularly sends publications to police for
assessment,’ IWPR reported. The comment was seen as a veiled threat
that journalists would be harassed if they continued reporting on
the case.

Arman Babadzhanian, 33, editor of the opposition daily Zhamanak
Yerevan and a critic of law enforcement officials, was released from
prison in August after doctors diagnosed a brain tumor, according
to press reports. In 2006, he was sentenced to four years in prison
after publishing an article that questioned the independence of
the Yerevan prosecutor’s office. Babadzhanian had been convicted of
forging documents to skirt military service; he did not dispute the
allegation, but he and press freedom advocates, including CPJ, said
the prosecution was selective and retaliatory. Babadzhanian underwent
surgery outside the country and was recovering in late year."