“There is officially no censure in Armenia, but the president’s administration leads its politics by giving orders, especially to public television.”
This is how the internationally known Freedom House evaluates the freedom of press in Armenia in its report. The analysts of the organization say the following:
“Despite the variety of presses, there are some presses that are under the control of the authorities and public television broadcasts are not independent.”
Freedom House states that freedom of press hasn’t progressed during the past year in Armenia.
“Oppositionists are often threatened and attacked. True, there was someone who was sentenced to 6 month imprisonment for attacking a journalist back in 2004, but he was released soon enough.”
The organization representatives also point out the fact that the printed press is highly dependent on political and business groups.
“The newspapers are printed in small copies and are mainly sold in the capital city; that’s why television is the most widespread means of getting information. But there are some economic loops here-the authorities don’t make it obvious that they are threatening television networks, but do have an influence on them by telling advertisers how to advertise,” states the report.
In the end, Freedom House states the following:
“During the constitutional amendments referendum campaign, the “Azatutyun” radio station didn’t go on air for a couple of days, just like back in 2004. The reason was the same-the broadcasts were not aired due to technical difficulties.”
In general, these are the flaws, which keep depicting Armenia as a country with no freedom of press for the past four years. However, in 2002, Armenia was considered one of the countries where there was partial freedom of press.
Freedom House has conducted research in 194 countries around the world. The press in the first 73 countries has been considered “free”, the next 54-“partially free”, while the other 67 as “not free”. Armenian press has been considered “not free”. Based on the freedom of speech part of the report, the U.S. and Estonia share the 17th place, Ukraine comes in at 113th and Georgia is the 118th, while Russia shares the 158th place along with Bahrain and Venezuela. Azerbaijan places 161st in the list of 194 countries with its freedom of speech and Armenia shares the 137th place with Kyrgyzstan.