The head of Supreme Council deputy’s group Ruben Torosyan came up with an initiative to found a “national congress of journalists’ rights protection” early last week when journalist of Haykakan Zhamanak daily Lusine Barseghyan was beaten.
After the violence against the chief officer of the Armenian Radio Liberty Hrach Melkumyan on August 18 Ruben Torosyan said that it is an urgent issue to found such institution in charge of protecting journalists’ rights. He says that the recent violence shows that he is true. “This time this violence was committed against one of the smartest journalists of Armenia. Meanwhile we think that this violence is connected with the Georgian-Russian conflict because throughout the conflict the radio Liberty has been broadcasting objective information in an operative manner. Some powers want to demonstrate that they are loyal to Russia,” says Ruben Torosyan. In answer to a question what the effect of such council or institution may be Mr. Torosyan said, “I think that mass media plays an important role in the civic and social life of our society, thus we should establish such commission which includes lawyers, politicians and also state officials.” Torosyan says that the latter may not be included in such commission but should be involved in its work in any manner or the members of this commission may meet them to discuss issues with them. “I think that if such commission is established in Armenia a lot of things will change. I think that if the authorities see that the foreign powers are concerned about the situation in which our society is trying to establish a commission in charge of protecting journalists’ rights they will be concerned and scared too,” says R. Torosyan.
During our conversation Ruben Torosyan said that such commission was also found in 1996, due to which they could push the government to release political prisoners. “At that time we discussed those problems with the government. In other words, we told them all the things that the government had to do but failed to do and told them that we could do those things instead of them,” he said. Torosyan said that the commission they established in 1996 was very effective because due to them the government released political prisoners. “Everyone remembers the events of 1996, when the NDU had to act correspondingly but failed, thus we took that role to do that instead of them. That commission involved Silva Kaputikyan and many other known people, thus we could easily meet with the prosecutors, police and the government to discuss the problems. As a result all political prisoners were released within one year. Even there were cases when such people were released just directly from the court halls. They might be released later too, but before that they might be kept for more time too. We used to organize different events and actions at that time,” said R. Torosyan and added that there was an urgent need to establish such commission.
In answer to a question whether such commission can prevent violence against journalists Ruben Torosyan said that he could not answer to that question. “It is so difficult to answer to questions specifically that I will not give any answer this time either. Everything is very unpredictable in Armenia but I think that such commission will help and will prevent violence. How long can it go on?” he said. Ruben Torosyan believes that such commission is necessary in Armenia now. “We can’t sit with empty hands. When journalists write a critical article they don’t think that anyone may commit violence against them. This is the same thing. We are suggesting to establish such commission, after which you will see that it will be a strong tool to fight against this fake demonstration of democracy in the country. I think that after that the international institutions will cooperate with us too and we will reach certain results. I don’t know whether journalists will be beaten again after creating such commission but let’s take steps and see what may help us to exclude such cases,” said Torosyan and added that he was waiting for answers from some people in order to decided who would be in charge of protecting journalists’ rights. “We made such announcement after Lusine was beaten but have not received any answers from people yet. Later after the violence against Hrach Melkumyan we decided that this issue is urgent and we should think about it seriously. It will be better if people answer to our announcements and suggest their help, but if there is no answer we will think about how we can do it,” he said.