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On February 24-25, the Winter Meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE PA) was held.

T he member of the RA NA delegation to OSCE PA Sargis Khandanyan took part via distance format in the works of the meeting of the OSCE PA General Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions and gave a speech.

“Madam chair, as you mentioned, as parliamentarians it is impossible for us to undermine the role of free media as a precondition for justice and rule of law.

As a part of the democratic reforms started in Armenia in 2018 after the Velvet revolution, ensuring the freedom of media and journalism is one of the key priorities in Armenia’s reform agenda.

Of course, Covid-19 pandemic as elsewhere in the world as well as the war in Nagorno-Karabakh has challenged the freedom of speech and the role and work of media and journalists in Armenia too. But I should admit that we could overcome difficulties and now are back on track of our reform agenda.

We are aimed at developing tools to combat disinformation and hate speech. In this respect it is important to underline that the new public education reform and the strategy in Armenia is designed to pay more attention to media literacy as a long term priority. We realize that we need to take further steps to improve the training and status of journalists, make systems of self-regulation effective and combat polarization of the media by increasing transparency in the area of media ownership. In this regard we pay a lot of attention on media transparency and financial accountability introducing a new legislation framework.

Of course, when it comes to media reforms it is essential to make the process very comprehensive and inclusive. And here I must say that the parliament and the government are closely cooperating with the Council of Europe, OSCE, our civil society and of course media organizations and individual journalists. It is important not to impose regulations but to create an environment and effective mechanisms for media to develop and become more trusted and competitive.” the MP noted.