National Assembly adopts legislation requiring media to take responsibility for citing unidentified sources
The Armenian National Assembly adopted legislative changes on Friday that would require media outlets to carry responsibility for quoting unidentified sources.
The respective amendments to the Law on Mass Media and to the Code on Administrative Offences, proposed by three lawmakers from the ruling faction, were adopted by 62 in favor and 25 against votes. The necessity of making legislative changes were justified by information security.
Opposition factions voted against the legislative changes, describing them as new restrictions on media freedom and free expression. According to them, citing unidentified sources is identical with the confidential sources which remains to the discretion of a media outlet, while reporters can disclose the source only by the decision of the court in the established cases.