In its annual worldwide survey on the media, Freedom House has once again categorized Armenia as “not free,” a situation which has been the case since 2002 when the pro-opposition A1 Plus TV station was taken off the air. A huge question mark then hung over the future of the company as many of its staff left to work elsewhere.

The Council of Europe and international media watchdogs decried the move seen by many as a precursor to later attempts to silence the press in the run-up to the presidential election held less than a year later. However, demands to let A1 Plus return to the air fell on deaf ears.

In June last year, the European Court of Human Rights even ruled in the station’s favour in an action against the government, but the victory was only symbolic. The station still remains without a broadcasting frequency. Instead, and undaunted by attempts to silence its voice, A1 Plus went online.

Also using blogs and YouTube, especially during last year’s contraversial presidential election, its web site is probably the most visited online news source in Armenia, with around 10,000 visits per day. That might not seem much, but in a country where Internet penetration stood at 5.7 percent in 2007, it’s quite something.

Now, in an effort to expand its reach, the banned station this week turned its attention to an estimated 1.9 million mobile phone subscribers in the country, offering short video headlines for users to download. True, the news is hardly extensive, but it does represent another attempt to take on governmental control of the broadcast media.

[…]

The full post where comments can be left is available on the Frontline Club blog.

ArmeniaNow has published my article based around the recent BarCamp held in Tbilisi and attended by bloggers, journalists and new media specialists from the Caucasus, Central Asia and Eastern Europe. The article also examines the emergence of blogging as a tool for change.

The idea of over a hundred people from the Caucasus, Central Asia and Eastern Europe gathering at an open air event held in the grounds of an ethnographical museum in the capital of the Republic of Georgia with no fixed agenda might at first sound like a recipe for disaster, but the concept of BarCamps is fast becoming popular the world over. An international network of participant-generated conferences – or “unconferences” usually focusing on the Internet and New Media – had come to the Caucasus.

The first ever BarCamp was held in Palo Alto, California, three years ago and over 30 have since been held worldwide. The Tbilisi event staged on 7-8 June was the first in the Caucasus and Azerbaijan will be staging its own at the end of August. Elsewhere in the former Soviet space, BarCamps have been held in the Baltic Republics, Ukraine and Belarus while Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia will hold their own later this year.

The BarCamp in Tbilisi was followed by a two-day workshop funded by the Open Society Institute (OSI) and the National Endowment for Democracy on new media and blogging. The training by the Prague-based Transitions Online for participants from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia is part of the online publication’s continued interest in promoting blogging in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

(more…)

After a 20-day state of emergency was declared in Armenia when clashes between security services and supporters of the former president, Levon Ter-Petrossian, broke out on the streets of the capital following the disputed 19 February presidential election, access to the media has been severely restricted. According to presidential decree, local media outlets can now only publish official news and political propaganda is banned.

[…]

Nevertheless, pro-Ter-Petrossian activists outside of the country have seized upon the opportunity to instead use blogs to disseminate information during what is to all intents and purposes a media blackout in the country. Interestingly, one such blogger, Artmika at Unzipped, likens it to the old Soviet practice of “samizdat.”

Samizdat (Russian: самиздат) was the clandestine copying and distribution of government-suppressed literature or other media in Soviet-bloc countries. Copies were made a few at a time, and those who received a copy would be expected to make more copies. This was often done by handwriting or typing.

This grassroots practice to evade officially imposed censorship was fraught with danger as harsh punishments were meted out to people caught possessing or copying censored materials.

Vladimir Bukovsky defined it as follows: “I myself create it, edit it, censor it, publish it, distribute it, and [may] get imprisoned for it.”

The full post is available on Global Voices Online.

A few weeks ago PanArmenian.Net reported that two representatives from Armenia will observe the 5 January 2008 presidential election in Georgia as part of the OSCE/ODIHR international observation mission. The web site of the Central Election Commission (CEC) of the Republic of Armenia named at least one of those representatives as Atom Mkhitaryan from the CEC’s Department of Foreign Relations.

(more…)

In addition to acting as the Caucasus Editor for Global Voices Online, some exciting news, I hope. I’ve been asked to act as the Armenia coordinator/contact person for a new online media project set up by France 24.

The Observers is a France 24 site that aims to:

Enrich our coverage of international current affairs with eyewitness accounts from ‘observers’- that’s to say those people who are at the heart of events. Videos, texts, photos- none of the content is produced by professional journalists- but everything is selected, verified, translated and explained by our team.

Give you the opportunity to discuss current affairs with ‘observers’ chosen by France 24, or with ‘friends’, sorted according to their expertise and interests.

(more…)

Rising Voices, the outreach arm of Global Voices, is now accepting project proposals for the second round of microgrant funding of up to $5,000 for citizen media outreach projects. Ideal applicants will present innovative and detailed proposals to teach citizen media techniques to communities that are poorly positioned to discover and take advantage of tools like blogging, video-blogging, and podcasting on their own.

[…]

Rising Voices outreach grants will range from $1,000 to $5,000. Please be as thoughtful, specific, and realistic as possible when drafting your budgets. Successful projects will be prominently featured on Global Voices.

The deadline for proposals is 30 November. More information is available here.

Following on from Canon’s announcement of the new EOS 1Ds MkIII and EOS 40D earlier in the week, Nikon have finally unveiled what has been the subject of much speculation, the full-frame D3 and DX-sized D300. There also some new lenses including three VR-equipped super telephotos.

The announcement of both new camera bodies is exciting enough, but the pricing of $4,995 and $1,799 also bodes well for a reduction in price for both the D2xs and D200. Previews are available on Rob Galbraith DPI. There are also previews of both models on Digital Photography Review.

Ken Rockwell also has pages on the new D3 and D300.

Well, it now appears as though ArmenTel is blocked for good. Given that the IP address is a generic one for all or most of its internet customers, I’m amazed that a company such as this could allow such a thing to happen.

Specified IP (212.73.64.41) has been removed an excessive number of times from the CBL already. Please contact cbl@cbl.abuseat.org for assistance.

I’ll email these guys, but I don’t see why I should have to. Makes me think that ArmenTel — Armenia’s main telecommunications company — is run by a bunch of cowboys.

cow·boy (kou’boi’)
n.

[…]

3. Slang A reckless person, such as a driver, pilot, or manager, who ignores potential risks.

If anyone out there is an IT specialist perhaps you can check to see what’s going on. Whatever the reason, this should not be happening.
I’ve already asked a friend to check whether the same thing happens for him from his computer via ArmenTel’s dialup service and it does.

Like I said — cowboys.

For nearly a week now, ArmenTel’s IP address that is used by all of its dialup customers has been blocked by CBL presumably because of spam coming out of Armenia. Each time it’s manually unblocked a few hours later it’s blocked again. Bad enough, but even worse is the fact that ArmenTel don’t appear to give a damn. Well, it’s how most organizations and companies are run here, but for a country that places such a priority on the development of the IT sector.

(more…)

For the past four days I’ve been unable to send any emails through Thunderbird and Outlook Express. Each time I try my mail server rejects the messages and says that my IP address has been blocked.

http://www.spamhaus.org/query/bl?ip=212.73.64.41

Interestingly, this IP address is not one specific to my computer. Other ArmenTel dialup users I know also have the same IP address although as they use web-based mail services such as Yahoo and Hotmail the blacklisting doesn’t appear to affect them.

However, if the situation is as it appears, it’s quite outrageous and one that ArmenTel should address immediately. According to CBL, this is not the first time that such blacklisting has occurred.

IP Address 212.73.64.41 was found in the CBL.

It was detected at 2007-07-29 04:00 GMT (+/- 30 minutes), approximately 4 hours ago.

It has been relisted following a previous removal at 2007-07-07 21:57 GMT

If anyone else is experiencing similar problems or knows anything about this situation please leave a comment. If someone from ArmenTel is reading this post, please look into this situation immediately.

I can request a removal via the CBL site, but I find that such a situation existing for four days without the largest telecommunications and Internet company doing anything about it is quite ridiculous.

Given that my 2.5 year old Siemens CX65 mobile died on me a few days ago thanks to an apparently inherent design flaw with the circuit board, time for some mobile phone humour. Myrthe at The Armenian Odar has more.

Earlier today I met a girl from Lebanon who had brought some things from my boyfriend’s parents for us. We didn’t know each other and we were supposed to meet on the Republic Square. This is part of the phone conversation we had when we were trying to find each other.

She: Are you standing in front of the museum?
I: Yes.

She: Are you wearing a black summer dress?
I: Yes.

She: Okay, I think I see you. Are you talking on the phone right now?
I: ….

(more…)