Day: February 27, 2007

Another Self-Immolation in Armenia

The post by Kornelij Glas this morning brought the shocking news: “A man has burnt himself in Republic Square”. The other bloggers soon followed with commentaries. In his post iArarat has formulated in one sentence, what seems to be in everyone’s mind as we look at the discussions going on in various blogs:

[…]You know things are getting really desperate when people start burning themselves in protest against government injustice.[…]

Onnik Krikoryan has much more detailed coverage of the incident:

[…]RFE/RL’s Irina Hovannisyan now reports that the man has since died from burns that covered 80 percent of his body at a Yerevan hospital.[…]

UPDATED: More blog posts, discussions and commentary on the tragic incident can be found here:
http://uzogh.livejournal.com/47683.html;
http://www.cilicia.com/2007/02/man-burns-himself-to-death.html;
http://www.blogrel.com/2007/02/28/what-else-does-it-take/;
http://www.cilicia.com/2007/02/election-depression.html.

Parliamentary Election Monitor

Via Oneworld Multimedia: Another Parliamentary Election Monitor is now available on the CRD/TI Election Monitor 2007 blog. This time it mainly deals with assurances from the Aleksan Harutyunyan that Public TV and Radio will be impartial in its coverage of the May vote.

[…]Following on from various private television stations denying that high costs for political advertising were introduced to prevent opposition parties from taking out slots in the broadcast media, RFE/RL reports that the Chairperson of the managing board of Armenian Public Television and Radio, Alexsan Harutyunyan, has defended his station’s policy on pricing. He also took the opportunity to promise that his journalists will remain impartial during the election.
[…]Harutyunyan also effectively dismissed opposition allegations that the recent decision to stop mandatory broadcasts from the National Assembly was an attempt to deprive them of airtime.
[…]Nevertheless, citing media monitoring by the Caucasus Media Institute in Yerevan, Armenia Now reports that Public TV does not appear to be allotting equal time to all parties in its news programs. However, CMI also says that reporting by the broadcast media is so far more or less equal, perhaps with the exception of ALM and H1.

For details of all of the above, as well as for other important developments last week, including “continuing negotiations between several opposition parties to form an electoral alliance” and “Aravot’s mention that former Karabakh commander and founder of the Dashnink party, Samvel Babayan, has reportedly been made Honorary Chairperson of the National Union of Yezidis” visit the  CRD/TI Election Monitor 2007.

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