Tendency to divide media field into “friends and foes” should be condemned: statement

Impeding professional activity of journalist is a criminally punitive deed, the Independent Trade Union of Journalists said in a statement today following the invitation of the head of the Armenian Institute of International and Security Affairs Styopa Safaryan to mass media to be present at a discussion organized by the structure relating to October 27.

Safaryan listed few mass media which he said were not invited being just “propaganda means.” He even stressed that if the media mentioned by him appear in the event they would be asked to leave.

“Our conviction is that the tendency to divide the media field into friends and foes is deeply condemnable and does not fit in the framework of declared principles of democracy and freedom of speech,” the Trade Union of Journalists said in the statement, adding that such behavior may be viewed as a call of intolerance toward different opinion, which, in essence, does not differ from the “hate speech.”

“Summing up our concerns, we want to remind that impeding the activity of journalist is a criminally persecuted deed. We call on all the NGOs and political organizations and figures to refrain from attraction to limit the freedom of journalists to get and spread information,” the statement said.