PM’s spouse Anna Hakobyan addresses congratulatory message on World Press Freedom Day

YEREVAN, MAY 3, ARMENPRESS. Anna Hakobyan, spouse of Armenia’s Prime Minister, editor-in-chief of Haykakan Zhamanak (Armenian Times) daily, addressed a congratulatory message on the World Press Freedom Day, her Office told Armenpress.

The message says:

“Dear journalists and colleagues,

I congratulate you on your professional day. Today is the World Press Freedom Day, and Armenia is celebrating this day by recording a positive dynamics. As you know, Armenia has recorded progress in the Press Freedom Index 2019 of the Reporters Without Borders international organization, capturing the 61st place compared to the previous 79th.

In our country, as well as around the world, the journalist’s work is one of the most thankful ones: journalists are under constant threat, always face obstacles while carrying out their professional duties, the tortures, persecutions and killings of reporters are an ordinary phenomenon in many countries of the world. This means that only the most courageous individuals who really value this profession decided to become a journalist, understanding quite well that work wouldn’t be easy.

This is in the entire world and in Armenia as well. And our society needs to understand this fact, appreciate the journalists’ work, encourage and support them.

Today, on the World Press Freedom Day, I also cannot raise the issue of the importance to improve the professional abilities of reporters every day and every hour. We must be able to directly look at the problems and accept that there is a major issue to raise the professionalism level of journalists in Armenia.

We need to understand that Free press is number one imperative of having a developed and prosperous country. According to all international reports, countries that have the freest press are Sweden, Norway, Finland, Switzerland and Canada. In other words, the world’s richest and most prosperous countries. And if we want to capture a place in this list, we must change our attitude to the media and reporters, must love and respect journalists, allow them to learn and be educated, be free, think critically, act impartially and openly.

Congratulations on World Press Freedom Day!

Long live Free Press!”

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan