During his regional visit to Armenia, Chairman of PACE, Rene Van der Linden, met with the Armenian authorities and gave a press conference. Van der Linden came in an hour and a half late due to his two-hour meeting with Robert Kocharyan. Van der Linden congratulated the journalists on the occasion of the National Assembly elections which, in his opinion, “were much, much better than the previous ones, and the mistakes made are lessons for the upcoming election”. According to Van der Linden, there is no progress in the relations between Armenia and its neighbors, referring to Turkey and Azerbaijan. The PACE chairman placed emphasis on the freedom of the press and the recent “Radio Liberty” scandal. According to him, the press must be free and accessible for everyone, and all political parties, because the most important thing for any democratic country is the judicial system and the free press, even more important than the elections.
“Of course, elections must be free and fair, but the precondition for those elections must be the mass media which must be accessible and suitable for all sides,” said the PACE chairman. The latter discussed the issue concerning “Liberty” and “A1plus”, and says that they should be treated as all other presses.
“With regards to the discussion of the new law on “Mass Media”, I think that the opinions and proposals of the Venetian Commission should be taken into account,” he mentioned.
Referring to the cases of imprisoned former Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Arzumanyan, Zhirair Sefilyan, and Vardan Malkhasyan, Van der Linden said that if the country is fulfilling the requirements of the Council of Europe, then “political prisoners are unacceptable”.
“I will not get into those cases, but of course, the Council of Europe must take that issue into account and conduct a thorough investigation. I say in the presence of the speaker of the parliament that if there are political prisoners, then measures must be taken,” said Rene van der Linden. Tigran Torosyan announced in Van der Linden’s presence that there are no political prisoners in Armenia and that every announcement is not a basis for considering Alexander Arzumanyan, Zhirair Sefilyan and Vardan Malkhasyan as political prisoners. According to Torosyan, they were charged and only after the examination of each case will it be possible to give evaluations. Until then, there is a need to call on the police to conduct an unbiased investigation. By the way, Van der Linden announced on Wednesday that the Council of Europe does not recognize the Nagorno-Karabakh presidential elections to be held on July 19.