PRESS-SECRETARY OF ARMENIAN PRESIDENT: RESTRICTIONS ON MEDIA’S ACTIVITY IN ARMENIA ARE TEMPORARY
arminfo
2008-03-17 16:49:00
ArmInfo. The restrictions on media’s activity in Armenia are temporary
and they are connected with the state of emergency imposed. These
restrictions will be lifted in several days, Press- secretary of the
Armenian President Viktor Soghomonyan said at a briefing, Monday.
He said that the March 1 presidential decree on imposing a state of
emergency and the March 13 presidential decree distinctly point out
inadmissibility of "provocative and invariably false information".
"Zhamanak Yerevan newspaper says that the authorities conceal
dozens of victims during the March 1 events and these events were
deliberately provoked by the authorities, etc. Hayk newspaper
says that the detainees are beaten at the police station during
investigation", he said. "The fact that Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper
prints an interview with its Editor-in-Chief Nikol Pashinyan, who is
wanted on the suspicion of felonies, is inadmissible. Nevertheless, the
representatives of RA National Security Service suggested excluding the
specified and similar materials, and the publication of the newspapers,
which have not been published since March 3, will be allowed. But
they refused and the reason is clear – in order to give a chance to
some international organizations to make statements on restriction
of freedom of speech, censorship, etc.", he added.
Soghomonyan said that the recent events subjected the information field
of the country to serious checking. Armenia’s information field has
never found itself in such critical situations before. The society
saw what serious role publication of invariably false information
in the press may have. In particular, the press- secretary touched
upon "the hundreds of thousands of participants in the rallies,
etc.". "The fact that Radio Liberty has deliberately distorted the
interview with Head of the OSCE Observation Mission Geert Ahrens
raises a lot of questions", Soghomonyan said.
He added that the society’s opinion that the authorities have blocked
some internet issues since the state of emergency was imposed is
also false.
"This is impossible even technically", the press-secretary noted.