On March 15 at the session of RA Central Electoral Commission the Journalists’ Accreditation Procedure at the CEC (approved on January 31, 2012) was amended. As it has been reported, on March 7 five journalistic organizations, including YPC, released a statement calling CEC to revise some provisions of the Procedure. Particularly, the media community was concerned with the two reasons for denying or terminating accreditation, prescribed in Articles 9 and 11 of the Procedure: if a journalist “has disseminated untrue information about the activities of the electoral commissions (official figures)” or “was condemned for premeditated crime and his/her convictions are not expired or expunged” (see details in YPC Weekly Newsletter, March 2-8, 2012).
At the March 15 session CEC held the above-mentioned provisions invalid. As the CEC informed YPC, at the moment the new text of the Procedure is sent to RA Ministry of Justice for official registration. At the same time, CEC noted that none of the journalists was denied accreditation.
