EMBATTLED REGIONAL TV STATION SCORES LEGAL VICTORY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 YEREVAN 000939 SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM KDEM KJUS KPAO AM SUBJECT: EMBATTLED REGIONAL TV STATION SCORES LEGAL VICTORY REF: YEREVAN 494 YEREVAN 412 YEREVAN 378 YEREVAN 344 YEREVAN 261 YEREVAN 86 YEREVAN 00000939 001.2 OF 002 (U) Sensitive but unclassified. Please protect accordingly. -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (SBU) The regional GALA TV company scored a legal victory on October 31 when Armenia's Cassation Court overruled a lower court's verdict ordering the removal of GALA's antenna from a Soviet-era broadcast tower. While welcoming the victory on the antenna, GALA was less pleased that the Cassation Court refused to consider its second complaint -- GALA's appeal of the USD 87,000 that it was forced to pay for reported tax evasion. GALA now plans to take its tax levy complaint to the European Court of Human Rights. END SUMMARY. -------------- GALA SCORES LEGAL VICTORY -------------- ¶2. (SBU) On October 31, Armenia's Court of Cassation overruled the February 29 verdict of the Shirak region's General Jurisdiction Court, which had ruled in favor of the Gyumri municipality against GALA TV. That ruling mandated the removal of the TV company's broadcast transmitter from an obsolete, Soviet-era transmission tower owned by Gyumri's municipality. GALA had been using the tower without compensating the city, which the city's leadership had apparently tolerated until GALA aired a September 2007 pre-election campaign speech by ex-President Levon Ter-Petrossian that was critical of the ruling authorities. Marshals of the court subsequently shut down GALA's transmission on April 16 (ref D) when they went to remove the transmitter, only to restore its connection the next day -- during a visit to the Shirak Governor by the Charge d'Affaires -- after GALA's owner reportedly reached a provisional accord with officials to continue broadcasting. ¶3. (SBU) With its October 31 ruling, the Cassation Court remanded the case to the Shirak lower court for reconsideration. Despite the fact that the lower court has yet to reconsider the case, GALA's owner Vahan Khachatrian told Poloffs he was virtually certain that the new ruling from Shirak's Court of General Jurisdiction would correspond with the Cassation Court verdict. Khachatrian based his judgment on the fact that Armenia's lower courts rarely, if ever, rule against Cassation Court decisions. (NOTE: Procedurally, when it wants to reverse a lower court decision, the Cassation Court most often returns the decision to the lower court for "reconsideration." This amounts, de facto, to overturning the lower court's ruling and instructing the lower court to change its decision. END NOTE) ¶4. (SBU) Khachatrian told Poloffs that he expected the Cassation Court's ruling on the antenna all along. He said the fallout from a decision ordering the antenna's removal, and effective silencing of GALA, would have created a huge uproar against the authorities, who are already on the defensive on media freedom issues. -------------- BUT BATTLE ONLY HALF WON -------------- ¶5. (SBU) In spite of the antenna victory, Khachatrian was unhappy about the result of GALA's other appeal to the Cassation Court. GALA unsuccessfully appealed to the Court to rescind the March 19 ruling of Gyumri's Administrative Court that fined GALA approximately USD 87,000 for tax evasion (ref E). In response, Khachatrian said that GALA soon intends to file a complaint rescinding the fine to the European Court of Human Rights. GALA had raised the funds to pay this tax levy with a spectacularly successful telethon campaign, which raised significant funds both domestically and from Armenians abroad. This was testimony to the fact that the GALA tax case had become a totemic vehicle, for many Armenians, of public resistance against what they considered government repression. Even after paying off the outsize tax assessment, GALA was considerably better off financially than it had been beforehand, having received contributions well in excess of what the government demanded. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶6. (SBU) With the Cassation Court's somewhat unexpected antenna ruling, the endless saga of the embattled GALA TV station -- and the freedom of Armenia's broadcast media in general -- continues. We YEREVAN 00000939 002.2 OF 002 have made this case one of our priorities in bilateral discussions on human rights, and it is encouraging to see a positive development for a change. It remains to be seen, however, whether the victory represents a temporary let-up on GALA until the next confrontation, or a new hands-off, post-election approach by the authorities on regional TV outlets. GALA remains a potent symbol of freedom of expression and popular resistance against authorities' politically-motivated actions. We could wish that the Armenian public had a more upright champion to support, given our lingering reservations about the GALA owner's business ethics. YOVANOVITCH