It’s been 8 years since venerable international organizations in charge of examining freedom of speech issues rank Armenia among the non-free media states of the world. The reason is the deprivation of the A1+ from translation in 2002. That’s when the whole media field appeared in the control of the government. The A1+ has participated in over 10 competitions in the previous years to receive translation license and was indeed denied and yielded its place to more “responsive” channels and TV companies. Only in two months in July another competition will take place, in which by judging from the current behavior of the government, the A1+ will be denied again. But this time the competition will take place in a slightly different environment. The current government especially in the recent period is doing their best to separate itself from Robert Kocharyan’s government. Let us recall that the A1+ was shut under the high sponsorship of Kocharyan. So maybe due to this reason, the government may provide translation to the A1+ during the July competition.
