On April 30 the international human rights organization “Freedom House” published its Annual Survey of Press Freedom Worldwide in 2002. The situation with the media of 193 countries was evaluated using the numerical scale from 1 to 100 based on the following criteria: free (1-30 points), partly free (31-60), not free (61-100) – the lower the score the higher the degree of freedom. The freedom of press was evaluated along three dimensions: legislation influencing media; political pressure, control and violence towards media; economic pressure and control over media. The sum of the scores along the three dimensions yielded the aggregate rating of the condition of media in a country.
In 2002, this rating for Armenia equalled 65 points, and thus our media have for the first time been recognized as not free. The tendency for the deterioration of the situation with the freedom of speech in the country has manifested itself already in 2001 when “Freedom House” evaluated Armenian press with 60 points – one point lower than in 2000 (see details in YPC Weekly Newsletter, April 20-26, 2002). A quite considerable five score decline occurred as a result of the increased economic pressure and control over media (16 points out of 30 possible for this dimension) and the deteriorated legal environment (23 points out of 30). As for the degree of political influence on media, according to “Freedom House” data, it has remained the same (26 points out of 40).
According to the report, such an obvious decline of the rating in Armenia is the “result of the government’s repeated use of security or criminal libel laws to stifle criticism”. As another reason the closing of the country’s leading independent TV company “A1+” is brought forward. “Often critical of the government, “A1+” did not resume broadcasting in the run-up to presidential and parliamentary elections”, “Freedom House” states. The researchers also note that most media are seeking “sponsorship from powerful the business or political interests” which “frequently exercise de facto editorial control over content and foster a climate of self-censorship among journalists”.
The worsening of the situation with the freedom of speech in 2002 is emphasized by ”Freedom House” in other post-Soviet countries as well. As those in Armenia, Russian media have declined from partly free to not free (66 points). Georgia scored one point higher (54) compared with the situation in 2000-2001. In Azerbaijan, in contrast, improvement is detected (73 points versus 77 in 2001). As a whole among the CIS countries, most unfavourable ratings are with Turkmenistan (92), Uzbekistan (86) and Belarus (82).
