Month: March 2021

On 24 March, 2021, the National Assembly adopted in the second reading and completely the legislative draft amending the RA Civil Code authored by Mr Alen Simonyan, Deputy Speaker of the NA, raising the damages awards for insult and defamation to 3 mln and 6 mln AMD, respectively.

This amendment is extremely dangerous, especially if we take into account the propensity of the representatives of the state authorities, politicians and other public figures to perceive even objective criticism as insult and defamation and apply to the court. If we add to this the total lack of independence of the judiciary, judgments following such complaints may become fatal for the further activities of the media.

This essentially means that contrary to the calls and pleadings of the media organisations and the expert community, the legislature approved of a repressive initiative related to the field of the media, which is not backed by any profound professional research and analysis, and is solely conditioned by narrow political interests.

The initial version of the draft, which was adopted in the first reading, foresaw multiplying the upper thresholds of damages awards for insult and defamation by five. Later, in the course of the deliberations in the NA it was decided to multiply them by three. This, however, cannot be deemed as a compromise in the solution of the problem as these amounts are not comparable with the financial-economic situation of the country and the finances of the media.

Without any intention whatsoever to defend those that commit defamation and insult, we, the undersigned media organisations, reaffirm that these amendments will cause a significant damage to freedom of expression and restrict the medias’ ability to criticise objectively. Apart from this, it may become a trigger for the courts to adopt more severe judgments against the media.

It is obvious that this legislative intitiative undermines the balance between the right to freedom of expression foreseen by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and the right to privacy foreseen by Article 8 of the same Convention. This amendment also neglects an important provision from the Decision No 997 of the Constitutional Court dated 15 November 2011, according to which while determining a damages award for insult and defamation found in publications, note should be taken of the medias’ finances to avoid a situation whereby liability leads to bankruptsy.

In view of the aforesaid, we call on the:

• RA President not to sign the Law on Amendments to the RA Civil Code and refer it to the RA Constitutional Court to verify whether it conforms to the RA Constitution and the precedent set by the Decision No 997 dated 15 November 2011 of the same Court.
• International organisations to publicly deplore the legislative amendments raising the damages awards for defamation and insult and to call on the authorities to review this initiative endangering freedom of speech in Armenia.

COMMITTEE TO PROTECT FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
YEREVAN PRESS CLUB
CENTER FOR MEDIA INITIATIVES
JOURNALISTS’ CLUB “ASPAREZ”
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION CENTER
MEDIA DIVERSITY INSTITUTE-ARMENIA
PUBLIC JOURNALISM CLUB
JOURNALISTS FOR FUTURE
JOURNALISTS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
GORIS PRESS CLUB
FEMIDA NGO

On 19 March, Mr Sargis Aleksanyan, a founding member of the Civil Contract party publicly addressed swear words to Mr Arman Tatoyan, the RA Human Rights Defender on his Facebook page. The reason was the HRD’s statement, condemining the violence exerted by Mr Hakob Arshakyan, RA Minister for High Technologies in respect of journalist Paylak Fahradyan. This post containing swear words were hailed by some of other representatives of the authorities, including Mr Nikolay Baghdasaryan, member of parliament. Other similar posts were disseminated in defence of Hakob Arshakyan whose authors demonstrated disrespectful attitude to the HRD, essentially for consistently performing his professional obligations.

We, the undersigned organisations, are concerned about this indecent conduct and condemn such incidents. This is the consequence of the atmosphere of hatred and intolerance in the country when even adequate criticism in respect of this or that public figure is perceived as a ‘hostile act,’ generating aggressive response.

It is of utmost importance that the impermissible conduct of politicians and their proponents is publicly condemned and the culprits are punished severely under the law. We hereby remind that according to Article 332.2 of the Criminal Code, “Threatening the Human Rights Defender in connection with the exercise of his/her powers, or demonstrating an explicitly direspectful attitude to him/her is punished by a fine in the amount of 200  – 500 x the minimum salary or detention for a period of 1-3 months.”

Perhaps this attitude of the representatives of the ruling political force conditions the underestimation of the HRD’s large-scale work and giving a political context to it. The Government’s proposal on the funding of the HRD’s office is even more worrying and can negatively impact the independence guarantees of this institute. We believe that in the post-war context when numerous new threats have emerged and the role of the HRD has increased significantly along with the volume of its work such an attitude is inacceptable. Incidentally, this problem has been addressed by the highly reputable international organisation Freedom House, which stressed that such approaches may deepen the crisis in Armenia and that the authorities must ensure smooth activities of the human rights institutions.

In the light of the aforesaid, we demand that:

• The Civil Contract party and the NA My step faction publicly condemn the swear words addressed to the HRD and apologise to Arman Tatoyan, hold the culprits liable and provide guarantees for the prevention of such conduct in the future.
• The NA leadership form an ethics commission with a view to examining the issue and officially publicise the adopted conclusion.
• The ruling political force review the non-objective assessment of the HRD’s work and exclude such changes of the ways of funding of the HRD’s office that may reduce the independence and efficiency thereof.

COMMITTEE TO PROTECT FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
YEREVAN PRESS CLUB
MEDIA INITIATIVES CENTER
JOURNALISTS’ CLUB “ASPAREZ”
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION CENTER
MEDIA DIVERSITY INSTITUTE – ARMENIA
PUBLIC JOURNALISM CLUB
JOURNALISTS FOR FUTURE
JOURNALISTS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
GORIS PRESS CLUB
FEMIDA NGO

Yesterday, on 18 March, Hakob Arshakyan, RA Minister for High Technologies exerted violence on Paylak Fahradyan, editor of the website www.irakanum.am in one of Yerevan cafes. Paylak Fahradyan had earlier approached the Minister and inquired why he was in a cafe during working hours. According to press publications, the conversation was unethical on both sides, following which the Minister punched the journalist and damaged his computer and cellphone.

It is really unprecedented for a Minister to resort to fists in his dealings with a journalist. This is yet another incident of extreme tension, mutual intolerance and indecent behaviour between the authorities and media workers. We have recorded such examples in the National Assembly and during many public events. High-ranking officials and politicians must be ready to appear in the focus of attention of the public and the media and demonstrate restraint in respect of the questions addressed to them. We would like to stress that journalists, in their turn, must abide by the law and standards of professional ethics.

We have all grounds to regard this incident as a result of inadeqaute response of the authorities to previous similar incidents. We find it surprising that some of Hakob Arshakyan’s team members are trying to make public statements and comments directly or indirectly justifying the incident of violence.

We, the undersigned media organisations, believe that exerting violence on journalists is impermissible and demand that:

• The Government and the Civil Contract party publicly condemn the Minister’s behaviour, examine the question of whether he should continue to remain in office and provide safeguards for the prevention of similar incidents in the future.
• The law enforcement authorities examine the details of the incident and provide a legal assessment thereof.

We call on journalists to avoid provocative attitude in dealings with public officials and politicians, in particular in cases when this does not contribute to the accomplishment of the journalistic mission of imparting objective information to the public.

COMMITTEE TO PROTECT FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
YEREVAN PRESS CLUB
MEDIA INITIATIVES CENTER
JOURNALISTS’ CLUB “ASPAREZ”
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION CENTER
MEDIA DIVERSITY INSTITUTE – ARMENIA
PUBLIC JOURNALISM CLUB
JOURNALISTS FOR FUTURE
JOURNALISTS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
GORIS PRESS CLUB