YEREVAN, JULY 8, NOYAN TAPAN. Presenting his special public report on the right to the freedom of speech in Armenia, RA Human Rights Ombudsman Armen Harutyunian said that the situation with freedom of speech is worrisome, there are numerous problems, and the course of reforms should be accelerated. The restrictions on the freedom of speech vary from open violence or threats of violence to the creation of artificial obstacles in the way of companies providing services to newspapers and the purchase of the whole print run of a newspaper from the newsstand. According to A. Harutyunian, journalists are subjected to violence for performing their professional duties and, as a rule, those guilty are not held accountable. In the opinion of many mass media outlets, under conditions of the state of emergency declared in Armenia on 1-20 March 2008, censorship was imposed on the mass media, which is forbidden by law. The report says that in many cases the restrictions on the freedom of journalistic activities have a political implication: the majority of violations are committed by one or another candidate or their representatives during an election campaign or on election days. "This shows that a culture of reasonable political struggle has not yet formed in the country: in order to win votes or not to lose them, the candidates very often resort to extreme measures," Armen Harutyunian noted. To rectify the existing situation, he proposed developing a package of legislative amendments on freedom of speech and the media in general - as a short-term measure, and carrying on a systematic struggle against vicious phenomena in this sphere - as a long-term measure.

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