On November 6 RA Government decided to establish a Center of Public Relations and Information. According to the information on the governmental web-site (www.gov.am), the Center is being established in accordance to the RA Law “On State Non-Commercial Organizations” with the aim of “conducting research in public relations, transparency of state structures, accessibility, gathering and imparting information”; “realizing general and thematic monitoring and media analyses, research and monitoring of media market”; “studying the international experience in the sphere of public relations and information”; “proposing initiatives, connected with the legislative regulation of media activities”. According to the Government resolution, managing the Center and other authorities are put on the administration of the President of Armenia. RA Ministry of Finance is directed to introduce its offers on the financing of the Center in a month’s period, and the Department of the State Property at the RA Government should introduce “the list and pricing of the property that is supposed to be handed in and/or assigned” to the new organization for approval.
Decision to establish a Center of Public Relations and Information arose concern on behalf of a part of journalistic society that assumes that this state institution can become an instrument for censorship and pressure on media.
