On February 16 a founding meeting of the Journalists Union of Mountainous Karabagh was held in Stepanakert. Kim Gabrielian, the Press Secretary of the MK General Prosecutor’s Office, was elected the Chairman of the Board of the Union. The Board also includes representatives of state-owned media and state bodies.
Previously, there have been numerous attempts to found a union in Karabagh (before the start of Karabagh Movement in 1988 only the regional affiliate of the Journalists Union of Azerbaijan existed here), however, the attempts fell flat: due to various reasons, the registration of the Union never took place. The future will show how viable the newly created association is.
As Kim Gabrielian mentioned at the founding meeting, the Journalists Union possesses the necessary funds to start its activities, in particular, there is a possibility to start the publication of a newspaper titled “The Fourth Estate”.
As Gegham Baghdasarian, the President of Stepanakert Press Club – the only independent journalistic organization that works successfully in MK – told Yerevan Press Club, SPC welcomes the creation of the Journalists Union and thinks that the necessity for such an association has been urgent for a long time already. “At the same time, it is desirable that the Union start its activities by cooperating with similar organizations. Unfortunately, only representatives of state-owned media of Mountainous Karabagh took part in the founding meeting, and this arouses natural doubts in the independence of the newly created organization. We hope that the principles of journalistic solidarity will become a cornerstone for the activity of Union”, Baghdasarian said.
