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On March 10, the RA NA Vice President, the NA Acting President Hakob Arshakyan received the delegation led by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media (RFoM) Teresa Ribeiro. The Secretary of the NA Civil Contract Artur Hovhannisyan and the deputy Maria Karapetyan also took part in the meeting.

Hakob Arshakyan congratulated Teresa Ribeiro on being appointed in such responsible position in the OSCE. According to the NA Vice President, after the 2018 velvet revolution Armenia has reached to a new level in the sphere of the freedom of speech and the media, but there are still a lot of things to do.

“This process is rather hard, but we are resolute to overcome all the obstacles and barriers in order to comply the Freedom of speech and the media to the European highest standards,” he said.

Hakob Arshakyan has touched upon the regional problems, underlining that Azerbaijan tries to present itself to the international community as a peaceful people and state, meanwhile resumes its aggressive rhetoric and hatred towards Armenia and Armenians. He has condemned the fact that Azerbaijan refuses releasing Armenian prisoners of war and other held persons, and the armed forces of Azerbaijan continue being in the sovereign territory of Armenia.

“We also clash with numerous facts and episodes of the destruction of the Armenian religious and historical-cultural monuments. This is a part of the policy of elimination of the native Armenian population of Nagorno Karabakh,” Hakob Arshakyan underscored.

The NA Vice President drew the guests’ attention to the fact that in the days of war, the journalists also were targeted by the Azerbaijani forces while undertaking their professional duties. According to Hakob Arshakyan, such a deliberate act was aimed at preventing the recording of war crimes by the Azerbaijani army and presenting them to the international community. In this context, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament highly appreciated Teresa Ribeiro’s reaction to Hrant Dink’s case.

Teresa Ribeiro referred to the importance of information accessibility, the security of information sources, and ensuring safe work environment for journalists. According to the guests, political processes should not have an impact on the media environment.

In this respect, Hakob Arshakyan stressed that many opposition media were licensed to operate in Armenia after the revolution. The NA Vice President emphasized that our country had taken steps to mitigate the manifestations of hate speech observed after the war.

Artur Hovhannisyan has presented the reforms aimed at improving the media field in our country in the last years, noting that the activities to improve the legislation on mass media are continuous. As the deputy assessed, the state should not interfere in the self-regulation of the journalistic community, but should try to support their activities.

Maria Karapetyan spoke about the post-war problems. The deputy also referred to the regulations establishing responsibility in case of quoting the sources without identification data.