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GALA TV is the only source of credible television news for Gyumri residents.

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" A corrupt person does not need unbiased information," says Khachatryan.

TV viewers in Gyumri, Shirak province, have an opportunity to eye details of the rally on Liberty Square that has been going on since February 20, while the rest of the viewing public sees only what authorities wants it to see.

On Election Day, GALA stirred controversy and anger from ruling parties, when it recorded images of voters receiving money for their votes. Physically incapable of recording all the cases on violations, GALA asked its viewers to send footage via their cell phones.

“We did what we had to,” chairman of the GALA TV and Radio Company and “Chap” Ltd. Vahan Khachatryan told ArmeniaNow.

“The whole staff of the channel covered [the events] as unbiased as possible. Through the whole of Election Day we got calls on cases of voter bribing. Now we have about 6-7 hours of audio records of those phone calls. On the Election Day we organized hourly news releases and showed all the videos. We began covering bribing cases on February 18th.”

Khachatryan says his station has expected repercussions but is not worried.

“We have been working without advertisement for five months already. Our bank account is blocked for a similar period, but to tell the truth, there is no such concern that the unbiased coverage may work against GALA. We have been living in extreme conditions for five months already. If anything had to happen, it should have happened much earlier,” says Khachatryan.

Khachatryan says there were threats which however did not prevent them.

“The threats came at the beginning, 4 months ago. They have been spoken about and covered many times. The threats came from the National Security Service, President Kocharyan’s Administration, Grigor Amalyan (Chairman of the National Commission for Television and Radio) and their minions. The first so called negotiations was in October, but then the talks all stopped. They openly asked us not to cover Levon Ter-Petrosyan, otherwise promising tax check-ups causing financial problems to the TV and Radio Company and promising also to raise the problem of the TV tower.”

GALA faced all the promised problems. As a result two court cases have been brought against the station. According to the first one the state tax service of Gyumri demands that the television company pays about 26 million drams (about $87,000) of taxes; according to another Gyumri municipality demands that GALA removes its transmitter from the town-owned TV tower, which actually means depriving the company of opportunity to broadcast.

He says he doesn’t connect his station’s success to the opposition.

“The society decides for itself whether it needs unbiased information or not. If people who take bribes in 5,000 drams ($16,) prevail, than naturally they don’t. I know it myself it’s useless. A corrupt person does not need unbiased information.”

For a significant part of Gyumri residents GALA has been the major source of information after the elections.

“We learn about the developments in Yerevan from GALA. Only GALA shows the reality,” says Gyumri resident Ashot Petrosyan.

“Expressing opinion on GALA alone is not enough,” resident Ashot Hakobyan, 48, says. “Honoured should be those who managed to stand the attacks of these barbarians and cover what took place in reality.

“Few two days ago all the TV channels showed some 7 women, who were condemning the rally on Liberty Square. They were given 5 minutes, while the opposition rally was not shown. Are these 7 women worth more than the thousands of Armenians at Liberty Square?! GALA stands by the people’s side and we will stand by GALA’s side if necessary.”