Freedom of Information Center of Armenia.

At a news conference on Tuesday, the head of the center, Shushan Doydoyan, said the ministers of health and emergency situations, Harutyun Kushkyan and Armen Yeritsyan, the mayor of Stepanavan, Sargis Gharakeshishyan, and the rector of the Northern University, Boris Makichyan have appeared in the organization's "black list".

She said the center had earlier asked all the ministries to provide information on the number of classified documents they had so far disclosed."Only the Defense Ministry had a certain number of disclosed documents. And the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had disclosed only one document," she said.

The health minister, according to Doyodyan, had declined to provide any information at all, while the emergency minister had said all their documents had been confiscated by the Special Investigative Service.

"But we found out they had given us false information," she added. The expert noted that government bodies are required to disclose strictly confidential documents within a maximum period of 30 years. "That means the state agencies should have disclosed all the documents classified until the year 2000. In this respect we are facing a serious problem in the state government system," she said.

Speaking of Stepanavan mayor, Doydoyan said he had required money for giving information, while the rector of the Northern University had left a citizen's request unanswered.

The expert said, nonetheless, that there is currently a certain progress in the sphere. She noted that 88% of their center's requests were answered in the first quarter of 2011, which is 33% more than in the same period of last year. The organization was rejected only twice, both times by the Defense Ministry, the expert said, adding that there had been justified reasons in both cases."I wouldn't like anyone to appear in the black list, but that will take a lot of time and efforts," she added.

 Source: tert.am