RFE/RL’s Future Hangs In The Balance

As the Armenian National Assembly prepared to vote on new legislation that could seriously limit and restrict broadcasts by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, up to 100 local activists from Armenia and the Diaspora assembled this morning in Yerevan’s Liberty Square before marching on the parliament building. Parliamentary deputies had already voted by 79 to 16 on passage of the bill on Friday, and today was to be its second and final reading.

EurasiaNet has more.

Dozens of demonstrators took to the streets in Yerevan on July 2 to protest draft legislation that they say could stifle free speech ahead of Armenia’s 2008 presidential election. The legislation, if passed, would enable officials to terminate Armenian broadcasts of the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, government critics contend. Government supporters reject the outcry as misdirected.

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Some representatives of local media outlets maintain that certain senior government leaders have long distrusted Radio Liberty, and see the legislation as a means of curtailing the station’s operations in Armenia. During his traditional 2007 New Year reception for journalists, President Robert Kocharian criticized the station for allegedly spreading “unbalanced and negative information.” Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian has expressed similar misgivings.

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Government critics see the legislation as connected to the upcoming presidential election. A similar move was used against popular private television station A1 Plus, which was shut down before the last presidential elections in 2003, commented Suren Sureniants, a member of the political council of the opposition Republic Party.

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On June 28, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Representative on Freedom of the Media, Miklos Haraszti, condemned the amendments as “incompatible with OSCE commitments to safeguard pluralism and the free flow of information in the media.” The New York-based organization Human Rights Watch voiced similar worries, saying that the amendments’ passage would undermine Armenia’s “international commitments to freedom of expression and the media.”

“As Armenia prepares for presidential elections in 2008, the world will certainly be watching to see if the government respects freedom of the media and other freedoms necessary for a free and fair vote,” said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. International observers said Armenia’s May 12 parliamentary elections as the first vote in the country’s post-Soviet history that largely met international standards.

Meanwhile, RFE/RL’s continues to follow developments that will determine its own fate in three news items, the first of which contradicts earlier claims by the government that the new bill will apply to the station. RFE/RL concludes that the statement by the Justice Minister perhaps reflects “disagreements with the country’s leadership” over the legislation.

A legal ban on retransmission of foreign broadcasts by Armenia’s widely accessible state radio could extend to the daily news programs of RFE/RL’s Armenian service, Justice Minister Gevorg Danielian said on Monday.

Danielian made this clear as parliament wrapped up heated debates on a package of government-drafted amendments to the Armenian laws on broadcasting and state duties that are widely regarded as an attempt to severely restrict RFE/RL broadcasts. The National Assembly passed the draft amendments in the first reading on Friday and is expected to turn them into law on Tuesday.

In addition to carrying a report on Human Rights Watch’s concern about what most analysts and observers believe is a move designed to limit RFE/RL’s broadcasts in the country, the station also reports that the bill’s passage through parliament couldn’t have come at a worse time for the authorities with senior representatives from the Council of Europe in Yerevan.

The members of a Council of Europe body monitoring Armenia’s compliance with its membership obligations to the Strasbourg-based organization arrived in Yerevan on a regular fact-finding mission that comes in the aftermath of the May 12 parliamentary elections.

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Ambassador Per Sjogren, head of the group representing the Council of Europe’s decision-making Committee of Ministers, made a special statement on the issue at a joint news conference with Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian. He said the planned ban on retransmission of foreign broadcasts by Armenian state radio could result in a “serious and adverse impact” on press freedom.

Sjogren also criticized the government proposal to impose heavy fees on private radio stations engaging in such re-broadcasts. He said the “disproportionately high broadcasting fees” would strongly discourage those stations from doing business with foreign broadcasters like RFE/RL.

“This approach would be contrary to the public interest and the important contribution that independent and free media should make to fostering public debate, political pluralism, and diverse opinions,” the Swedish diplomat said.

While other online publications such as Armenia Now and Hetq Online also cover the story here and here, local bloggers have also been quite prolific in covering an albeit small demonstration that marched on parliament to protest the bill. Wearing gags and attaching banners to the gates outside the Armenian parliament, although RFE/RL reports that hundreds took part, I have to say that there were only about 100.

The Armenian parliament today is debating the second and final reading of draft legislation that would severely restrict foreign-broadcast media, particularly RFE/RL.

Hundreds of press-freedom advocates protested the proposals outside parliament today in Yerevan.

Inside, opposition parties sought changes to scrap the draft legislation’s apparent restrictions on RFE/RL broadcasts. But pro-government parties are reported to have amended that new language to restore the text’s original intent.

An RFE/RL journalist interviews Diasporan blogger Anoush during today’s demonstration in support of the station, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2007

Nevertheless, the action in support of RFE/RL was quite effective, and if Diasporan blogger and protest participant Anoush is correct, marks the first time that members of civil society worked together quite openly with representatives of USAID in the form of Counterpart International.

Certainly, I saw at least two local staff members participating in the march on parliament and noticed the Armenian-American Chief of Party photographing the procession on Baghramian so I suppose she must be right. Anyway, Anoush has posted a brief account of today’s demonstration.

A group of activists organized primarily through the efforts of Sksela, Transparency International, and Counterpart International, together with the cooperation and participation of many NGOs and media outlets (after we sent out mass emails stressing to each that such a dangerous step regarding restricted media specifically required their attention and action), gathered at Freedom Square and marched to the gates of Parliament on Baghramyan Avenue, with covered mouths symblizing the silencing of free and diverse media, and bearing a 10 meter long poster which proclaimed “Nrank kvyarkelen azadutyan dem” (”They voted against Freedom”), in bold letters and then listed the names of the 200+ members of Parliament who voted for the bill on Friday.

The Armenian Observer also carries an update on what many consider to be the most significant attack on media pluralism in Armenia since the effective removal of the A1 Plus television station off the airwaves in April 2002. As with this initiative which would forbid RFE/RL broadcasts on public radio as well as incur greater costs for private stations, A1 Plus lost its right to broadcast less than a year before the presidential election in February 2003. The next presidential election is scheduled for early next year.

Representatives of a number of non-governmental organizations and active citizens marched from the Freedom Square to the National Assambley building, demanding Freedom for “Liberty”.

“At all times in our newest history, whenever we were experiencing retreat from democracy, one of the first steps has been stopping the “Liberty” broadcasts\. Today we are again living such times”, - according to the president of the Yerevan Press Club - Boris Navasardyan.

While the protest action by a couple of dozen Radio Liberty supporters was in progress outside the gates of the Parliament, debates continued within - without much progress. Some details have emerged from the discussion, changes have been suggested by the Prosperous Armenia, Republican and “Rule of Law” parties - but as the suggestions from the coalition parties do not change anything substantial in the legislative initiatives, whereas the suggestions of the opposition parties don’t look as if they have a slightest chance, no real change is expected to the situation until tomorrow morning, when the final vote will be held on the government proposed legislation, which in essence is an attempt to deprive Radio Liberty of its current broadcast capacities and audience in Armenia.

Bekaisa posts a few photos from the demonstration here, here, and here, including those by local blogger Tirami Su who ironically enough posts only one. Nevertheless, on the main RFE/RL web site, the station links to her Flickr page of additional photos in an article on the latest developments in this story. Unzipped also has more coverage.

During a July 2, Yerevan protest against attacks on media freedom, a demonstrator with a gag across her mouth touches “faceless” posters attached to the fence of Armenia’s parliament building with the names of the 79 deputies who had voted for the reading of a bill that could possibly restrict broadcasts by RFE/RL. If passed, the new law would impose a $200 fee for each retransmission of a foreign media program on a private Armenian station. (Onnik Krikorian for EurasiaNet)

Protest in support of RFE/RL, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2007