Attacks on journalists have become a usual thing in Armenia during the past couple of years. That is probably the reason why it has been a couple of years since international organizations have made speeches placing Armenia in the list of countries with “non-liberal” mass media rather than the former “liberal” mass media country. Recently, according to the speech published by the “Journalists Without Limits” international organization, Armenia has gone down by 23 points as far as mass media liberalism is concerned. Ombudsman of Armenia Larisa Alaverdyan had also stated this in her speech a couple of days ago: “The attacks, the physical injuries, creating problems for the journalists and bothering them from doing their work and arresting them is starting to become bad practice,” said Mrs. Alaverdyan. Let’s mention the fact that there are many attacks on journalists especially when the country is in a tense inter-political situation. It is then that some huge, scary shaved heads arrive and attack the “revolutionary” journalists-creating problems for them and not letting them do their job. According to custom, after the attacks on journalists while they are doing their job, condemning speeches are made by journalist organizations and then the judge simply sentences the ones responsible and everything ends here. During a meeting at the “Hayeli” club yesterday, chief editor of the “Azg” newspaper Hakob Avetikyan and president of the Yerevan Press Club (YPC) Boris Navasardyan discussed the frequent attacks on journalists throughout the past couple of years. Chief editor of “Azg” believes that the mass media are split up. “When there are attacks on journalists, what happens? We think to ourselves: Which medium? Which newspaper? Which television network? What did that boy or girl write? Was he or she defending Kocharyan or the opposite?” said H. Avetikyan who believes that the important thing here is not the individual, but rather the phenomenon and that must be evaluated. According to Avetikayan, the journalists are also the ones to blame for the attacks; they are the ones expressing public opinions. “What we must understand is that we must not lay a finger on the journalist,” says chief editor of “Azg” newspaper. He proposes the following: whenever a journalist is attacked while completing his or her job, the journalist organizations must hold a conference immediately on the same day with the participation of news mediums. H.Avetikyan also suggests inviting the general prosecutor of Armenia and the police officer, put the issue up for discussion and appoint deadlines. He believes that a certain plan must be made in order to carry out the activities. In order to stop all attacks on journalists, mass media must not present themselves as part of the political struggle. President of the YPC B. Navasardyan stated his opinion which was similar to this yesterday. However, Navasardyan does not consider that a reality in our country and believes that we can fight against attacks on journalist through “making peace with journalists”, which according to him, still doesn’t correspond to reality. “Today, mass media solve political issues and it is rare to see them take the time, be strong and make efforts to solve the issues at hand,” says the president of the YPC. According to Navasardyan, the authorities can put an end to the attacks on the journalists simply by punishing the attackers, but we don’t see that going on. It turns out that perhaps we can’t fight against the attackers. B. Navasardyan is of the opinion that we can fight against the attacks by always drawing our attention to them. In any case, we can say that Armenian journalists remain powerless against some shaved heads and most of the journalists don’t even want to deal with them or don’t dare. As for the journalist attackers, they know that each attack costs them 100 dollars. They beat them up, pay the amount and feel proud of themselves.
