A1 Plus | 20:19:48 | 28-06-2004 | Politics |
BORIS NAVASARDYAN: A1+ ISSUE MUST NOT BE REMOVED FROM PACE RESOLUTIONS
President Kocharyan has come up with a proposal to sent the PACE monitoring
group to Armenia to convince PACE that the situation in media field here is
not so bad, the opposition activists are not being bared from airing their
views on TV channels and the fact of stripping A1+ TV Company from
broadcasting license doesn’t mean restriction of freedom of speech. He’s
done it in a hope that the issue will be removed from the PACE resolutions.
On Monday, Chair of Yerevan Press Club Boris Navasardyan, commenting on
that, said there was convincing evidence that the 2002 and 2003 tenders for
broadcasting frequencies had been held with the law serious violation. The
A1+’s issue must not be removed from the resolutions. Even in the event the
things are put right in media field, the A1+ TV Company’s issue must remain
in the resolutions. In his opinion, these two issues are completely separate
and must not be lumped together.
“As a rule, monitoring held amid political tension produces is more
effective. Different organisations having conducted monitoring during the
2003 elections on Armenia noticed biased stance shown by leading media
outlets in covering them.
It laid grounds for saying Armenian faced serious problems related to
freedom of speech. Air availability for the opposition is one of freedom of
speech criteria. But there are other criteria. It is very important how
media outlets cover social and political developments”, Navasardyan said.
He thinks, measuring duration of air-time or space in newspapers given to
the opposition activists is only one part of monitoring.
Methodology of monitoring in calm political situation should be completely
different: it should show the media whole activity at the certain period of
time, Navasardyan said.