On December 5, on the invitation of Mr. Armen Ashotyan, Chairman of the Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Youth and Sport and representatives of national minorities, living in Armenia, visited the National Assembly –to become familiarized with the provisions of the draft on Making Amendments to the RA Law on TV and Radio, recently adopted in the parliament, through the first reading, which are directly related to the national minorities.

Presenting the goal of the meeting Mr. Armen Ashotyan said that it was proposed to amend the time limit of the broadcast programs of the public TV and Radio, spoken by the languages of national minorities of the Republic of Armenia to the RA Law on TV and Radio and to fix weekly 2 hours for TV and 2 hours for a day for the Radio broadcasts. He said that the broadcast programs would be obligatory and accompanied by Armenian versions.

The representatives of the national minorities endorsed the envisaged amendments to the law and there were no proposals or discontents in that direction. Instead the guests talked about the problems, related to educational cultural, social and administrative regional fields. The chairman of the committee proposed to present the problems, related to educational cultural fields in written form. The guests also touched upon the current issues, related to preparation of TV programs, in the direction of the solution of which Mr. Armen Ashotyan proposed to organize a debate with competent persons.

Besides this bill the representatives of the national minorities were proposed to get familiarized with the legislative initiative, authorized by the MPs Mr. Armen Ashotyan, Ms. Naira Zohrabyan, Mr. Viktor Dallakyan, Ms. Heghine Bisharyan and Ms. Lilit Galstyan on Making Amendments and Addenda to the RA Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations.