KOCHARYAN ADVISING “A1+” TO WAIT
Support A1+!During the press conference in Council of Europe “A1+” correspondent was given the chance to pose the last question to Robert Kocharyan. Let’s remind that the journalists of our TV Company are deprived of the opportunity to ask their President questions in Armenia.
In reply to our remark Kocharyan said if there wasn’t a chance, it will be settled and went on to the key issue – why despite the demand of PACE April resolution “A1+” is not given the chance to broadcast?
Kocharyan said other private TV Company broadcast instead of “A1+” now and the monitoring held the previous year had showed Opposition had the chance to enjoy the airtime of this TV Company.
Is only granting airtime to Opposition the speech freedom? Robert Kocharyan said that’s however the point of view of CE.
Neglecting other demands and principles of CE, Mr. Kocharyan as usual repeated that “A1+” sustained a defeat in tenders and its tender proposal was weak, adding “banning a TV Company from the broadcasting area is not yet restriction of speech freedom”.
Why is there the frequency for “Kultura” Russian Channel even without a tender while there isn’t that for “A1+”? Robert Kocharyan passed by the question and announced “A1+” had been given the opportunity to broadcast but it had refused. According to him, the opportunity is the satellite broadcasting on Public TV Company for a few hours.
”A1+” needs its air”, the TV Company journalists remarked. “In that case you have to wait”, Robert Kocharyan said and went out considering the conference finished.
Karine Asatryan
Strasburg
”A1+”
