The Armenian parliament began debating on Tuesday a government bill that would
prolong a de facto ban on the country’s main independent TV station,
controversially pulled off the air in 2002, for at least two more years.

Under government-drafted legal amendments, the National Commission on Television
and Radio (NCTR) will be unable to hold tenders for broadcasting licenses until
July 2010.

The government says the proposed measure is necessary for expediting Armenia’s
planned transition to mandatory digital broadcasting by 2012. But critics
believe its real purpose is to fend off renewed Western pressure for the
reopening of A1+, the only national TV channel that had regularly aired
criticism of the government.

A1+ lost its broadcasting frequency in a supposedly competitive tender that was
won by a pro-government media outlet. Its numerous attempts since then to win
another frequency have been blocked by the government-controlled NCTR,
reinforcing the widely held belief that the outcome of the 2002 bidding was
politically motivated.

In a largely symbolic verdict, the European Court of Human Rights last June
fined the Armenian government 20,000 euros ($30,000) for the ban and said the
NCTR’s consistent rejection of A1+ applications ran counter to the European
Convention on Human Rights. The Strasbourg-based court stopped short of
obligating the Armenian authorities to allow A1+ to resume broadcasts.

The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) took a similar line later in
June, backing away from its earlier intention to demand that the authorities at
last “grant a broadcasting license to A1+.” A resolution adopted by the PACE
only contained a general call for the fairness and transparency of frequency
tenders administered by the NCTR.

The National Assembly’s likely approval of the proposed amendments to Armenia’s
Law on Television and Radio would mean that there will no be such tenders until
July 20, 2010.

Economy Minister Nerses Yeritsian, who presented the bill to the parliament,
denied any link between it and A1+. But members of the parliament’s tiny
opposition minority claimed the opposite, however, saying that the
administration of President Serzh Sarkisian is thereby showing its intolerance
of dissent.

Mesrop Movsesian, A1+’s owner and chief executive, agreed. “All that is being
done to make sure that there are no more tenders and to prevent A1+ from
returning to the air for at least a couple of more years,” Movsesian told
RFE/RL.

“This shows the authorities are so worried about the emergence of an alternative
voice that they are again taking steps to stifle freedom of speech in Armenia,”
he claimed.

By Anush Martirosian and Hovannes Shoghikian