A1 Plus Anniversary Protest Rally, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2004

EurasiaNet has an interesting article on the recent report published by Freedom House which concludes that a “reconsolidated authoritarian model” is being implemented by Russia and former Soviet republics especially when it comes to the media. The report also says that there are concerns that bloggers might next be targeted. Thankfully, I can’t say that I feel as though Armenia is one of those countries where the situation is as repressive as other CIS states. However, there are some similarities in terms of overall trends.

The report — titled Muzzling the Media: The Return of Censorship in the CIS — makes the assertion that most former Soviet states, including those in Central Asia and the Caucasus, are the most hazardous on earth, outside of active war zones, for journalists to work in. Entrenched authority in these states are increasingly unwilling to tolerate the “watchdog” role that media strives to play in open societies, according to the report.

[…]

At least for the foreseeable future, any hope that a free press would develop in what was once the totalitarian former Soviet space has dissipated, the report suggests. It adds that methods of media control in the CIS have become more sophisticated since the 1991 Soviet collapse. “Gone is all encompassing ideological state media control,” the report says. “This contemporary form of censorship is achieved through a mix of state-enabled oligarchic control, broadcast monopolies of presidential ‘families,’ judicial persecution and subtle and overt forms of intimidation.”

[…]

Four major trends have emerged over the last three-plus years in the region, each of them designed to thwart democratization. The first is “intensified” state control over television, which is the primary way most residents in the CIS receive information. Authorities have also reworked legislative frameworks to “impede independent reporting.” In addition, CIS governments have taken action to prevent international broadcasters, including the British Broadcasting Corp. and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, from broadcasting via local radio stations in the regions. Finally, officials are now starting to scrutinize print media, which to date has offered perhaps the widest outlet for the dissemination opposition ideas in many countries.

Despite broad efforts by authorities in the region to squash scrutiny of their actions, independent journalism has survived due largely to the existence of the Internet, the Freedom House report says. “Bloggers and other new media practitioners continue to push the boundaries of 21st century journalism,” the report says. “But while the Internet remains free in Russia and a number of other post-Soviet countries, it is fast becoming a target of greater interest for new regulatory intervention.”

“While the Internet holds further promise and connectivity is growing at an impressive rate,” the report adds, “it remains a medium through which only a small fraction of news is obtained. As Internet use grows, it will become critically important to safeguard its integrity.”

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Artyom will be pleased. Finally, I managed to track down a copy of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan on DVD in Yerevan. Up until now, shops only had it in Russian and it most definitely wasn’t shown at the cinema here.

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Yesterday I discovered that freelance writer Joshua Kucera was in town and that in addition to writing a series of articles en route from Istanbul to Beijing via the countries that made up the former Soviet Union in the Caucasus and Central Asia for EurasiaNet, he’s also running his own blog detailing his travels. This is particularly interesting as he’s able to comment on the aftermath of the 12 May parliamentary election here.

[…] this election got a fairly good review from international monitors. The EU said the elections were “on the whole, conducted fairly, freely and largely in accordance with the international commitments which Armenia had entered into.” And they kept the ruling party in power.

The reactions to the election I’ve heard basically come in two forms, and depend on whether the person is from the Armenian diaspora or was born here. The former say “Well, it wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty good. And hey, even elections in the US aren’t perfect.” The latter say “They’re just getting better and more subtle at stealing the elections.” The theory seems to be that the ruling party paid off local leaders to get people in their towns and villages to vote for the ruling party. But there is no evidence for this. As one guy told me, “it’s so blatant it’s not provable.” Caucasian logic, I guess. The diaspora people say the locals are conspiracy theorists, the local people say the diaspora people are naïve. I suspect both are right.

Anyway, today was a big opposition protest – big by Armenian standards, at least. I would estimate the crowd at about 2,000, the more enthusiastic opposition types I went to it with said 5-6,000. Even assuming the bigger figure, and taking into account that Armenia has only 3 million people, that’s not going to start a revolution. A similar protest last week got violently broken up by the police with beatings and tear gas, but this one went peacefully.

The big problem with the opposition here is that it’s not well organized. (Probably they need American help, like in Georgia and Serbia.) There are some small attempts to organize around those models. Apparently there was some discussion about choosing a color or some sort of flora to symbolize opposition to the government, like orange in Ukraine, roses in Georgia or tulips in Kyrgyzstan. The closest they came here was apricot, as this is apricot country and it’s sort of a national symbol. But instead they chose “1+,” as in one vote plus one vote plus one vote… adds up to a victory. Not bad, but not quite as simple as a color or fruit.

Still, there wasn’t a tremendous amount of energy at the protest, and there were probably more people sitting in the cafes surrounding the square where it started than actually protesting. […]

The people I was with were of mixed opinion about the impact of the protest: some thought it was the start of something that could snowball; some thought it was doomed to failure. One guy said the west sealed the opposition’s fate when it said the election was basically fair, pointing out that in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine, a key ingredient was the sense that the west was on the side of the opposition. Without that, I think he’s right, there’s not much hope for them.

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The BBC reports that Saparmurat Niyazov, otherwise known as Turkmenbashi, has died. A1 Plus carries Kocharian’s official condolences although I have to wonder how many people will really lament his passing. Certainly not the ethnic Armenians from Turkmenistan I’ve spoken to.