Fines and Sanctions for Journalists and Media: New Bill

At today's meeting of the permanent committee for science, education, culture, diaspora, youth, and sports of the National Assembly, several members from the ruling Civil Contract party, including Artur Hovhannisyan, Vahagn Hovakimyan, Taguhi Ghazaryan, and Sargis Khandanian, presented a draft amendment to the law on "Mass Media," which imposes further restrictions on journalists and media outlets. The proposal has been addressed by Hraparak.

Two bills were presented at the committee meeting: an amendment to the law on "Mass Media" and a project concerning administrative offenses that establishes fines and sanctions for journalists and media outlets.

The proposed changes to the law on "Mass Media" involve the addition of new points to several articles, thereby creating additional complexities for media organizations. For instance, they have suggested adding a new point 5 to Article 3 of the law, stating: "5) Unidentifiable source: a domain registered on the internet, a website with hosting, or an account or channel or page of an internet website or application whose owner's identification data is hidden from the reader." Through this, the ruling party representatives aim to combat so-called "telegram channels" and Facebook fake pages, even though, especially during wartime, it was the authorities who disseminated widespread falsehoods and fabrications through both official sources and various fake pages.

The real aim of this amendment, however, is to prevent the dissemination of undesirable and unpleasant information for the authorities by those media resources whose owners or authors they cannot identify and hold accountable.

To achieve this, they have also amended Article 11 of the law, requiring that media outlets present their information in a maximally transparent and detailed manner. Specifically, paragraph 4 of Article 11 stipulates that a mass media organization registered online with a domain and hosting must include the following on its website: 1) the name of the media outlet; 2) the full name of the legal entity conducting the journalistic activity, its organizational-legal form, location; if the legal entity is an individual, their name, surname, location, if they are an individual entrepreneur, also their state registration number and date of issuance; 3) contact information (telephone number and email address).

It is indeed difficult to imagine how the authorities will combat these so-called "unidentifiable sources" even after the enactment of this law, as they will naturally not comply with these regulations and will not disclose their information.

Essentially, with this draft, Prime Minister Pashinyan's team is attempting to prohibit established and identifiable media from referencing these "unidentifiable sources" or perhaps even make their own sources subject to restrictions planned by this law by referring to them in articles and news with phrases like "according to our information".

The authors of the bill also sought to regulate financial transparency in media outlets by rephrasing Article 12 of the law as follows: 1. The income of a mass media outlet is generated from advertising, other paid airtime, sales of its own printed periodical, audiovisual, audio, and visual-audio materials, subscription payments, sponsorships, loans, and investments from individuals who are the real beneficiaries. 2. The entity conducting journalistic activity must publish its financial report from the previous year concerning income sources stated in the first part of this article under a heading "Annual Report" by March 31 of the current year in the latest issue issued on a physical medium of the news outlet, and on the main page of the internet-registered domain, hosting site.

The draft also proposes amendments to the accreditation procedure for journalists in state bodies. For example, subsection 1 of Article 6 now states that "An entity conducting journalistic activity cannot apply for accreditation in state bodies for its journalist if it has not fulfilled the requirements stipulated by Article 11 or paragraph 2 of Article 12 of this law." Another provision stipulates that in case of cessation of the legal relationship with an accredited journalist, the media entity must notify all state bodies where the journalist is accredited within five days in writing.

And to ensure that everything can be effectively implemented, the proposed amendments to the Administrative Offenses Code also stipulate "sanctions," specifying the fines applicable to the media outlet for violating which article.

Specifically, Article 189 of the Administrative Offenses Code states that failure to include data of a mass media outlet or failure to submit mandatory copies, or referencing prohibited sources, or failure to publish reports concerning the transparency of the financing sources of a mass media outlet within the legally prescribed deadlines leads to a fine for the entity engaged in journalistic activities ranging from three hundred to five hundred times the minimum wage.

Point 2 of the same article stipulates that the dissemination of a mass media outlet that does not include legally prescribed data or references to sources prohibited by law incurs a fine for the entity engaged in journalistic activities ranging from three hundred to five hundred times the minimum wage. The same violation, if committed again within a year of administrative measures being applied, will incur a fine of six hundred to one thousand times the minimum wage for the entity engaged in journalistic activities.

It is notable that the authors of this new initiative aimed at tightening control over journalists' work through various fines and legislative "regulations" have themselves previously been journalists or at least considered themselves as such, such as Artur Hovhannisyan, Vahagn Hovakimyan, and Sargis Khandanian. The main rapporteur of the bill is Artur Hovhannisyan, and another rapporteur mentioned is fellow Civil Contract representative Hasmik Hakobyan, who has also worked as a journalist at H3 TV channel at some point. These individuals have decided to "regulate" the media landscape, going against the principles that their political leader, former journalist and editor Nikol Pashinyan, once fought for.

The draft is included in the agenda of the upcoming National Assembly plenary session starting tomorrow, and it will be discussed today at 14:00 in a meeting of the parliamentary subcommittee.