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YEREVAN, OCTOBER 28, ARMENPRESS. Freedom House listed Armenia among the countries with free internet in its new report “Freedom of the Net 2015”. AS “Armenpress” reports, our country ranked 28th among 88 countries, ahead of neighboring Azerbaijan (56th place) and Turkey (58th place).
Internet penetration rate (46%) in Armenia has continued improving over the past few years, alongside improvements in the stability of the internet’s infrastructure and relatively few restrictions on online content. Additionally, citizen groups and NGOs have made use of online communication tools to promote and organize campaigns, particularly surrounding the protests in Yerevan against hikes in electricity prices in mid-2015.
While the government generally refrains from blocking or removing online content, in May 2015, an episode of a web series satirizing the police response to protests in Yerevan was removed by YouTube. Allegedly the video was originally flagged by the police for removal, and it was removed due to copyrighted clip in the video.
In March 2015, members of parliament proposed amendments to the Law on Personal Data Protection that aim to increase privacy protections by creating an agency with the authority to oversee government decisions with regard to accessing personal data.
In terms of obstacles to access Armenia got 6 points out of 25, in terms of limits on content – 10 out of 35 and 12 points out of 40 on violation of user rights.
Thus, Armenia, just like neighboring Georgia, remains the only country with free internet in the CIS area. Azerbaijan and Turkey are described as countries with “partly free” internet. Iran and China are among the states with the worst state of internet freedom. Russia's positions have deteriorated and the country is listed among the countries with “not free” internet.