The Reporters without Borders human rights organization, the headquarters of which is located in Paris, released its annual report on freedom of speech. The report reads that Armenia’s position in the ranking has slightly been improved compared to past years. “Mostly status quo remains in the region. There is slight improvement in Georgia and Armenia,” said the officer of the European and CIS department, Elza Vidal, when answering the question of the Radio Liberty about the main differences in 2006-2007 reports. “We see certain improvement in Armenia and Georgia and especially relating to the availability of information to the public.” In this report Armenia ranks 77 among 169 countries and Georgia occupies the 66th place. As of Azerbaijan, which ranks 139 in the list, Vidal said, “The government of Azerbaijan is being deaf to our opinions and complaints and has decided to cease their dialog with us. They don’t wish to cooperate with us. They think that if they stop communicating with us we will quit asking questions about their 7 journalists, who are currently detained in that country.” “Some of them were charged with false accusations when they started to write anti-government articles,” she emphasized and added, “that is the reason why Azerbaijan occupies the last place in the Caucasus.” The report mentions that Turkey is the only country in the region, where a journalist was killed – editor of Agos newspaper, Hrant Dink. According to the Reporters without Borders the state of freedom of speech is the best in Iceland and Norway and Estonia. China, Byrma, Cuba, Iran Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea occupy the last places.
