Armenia’s leading press freedom groups criticized the move, strongly condemned by the opposition, as politically motivated.
The church has co-financed the Shoghakat channel together with the government ever since founding it about two decades ago. The TV station has mostly aired cultural, religious and educational programs and not reported on political developments in the country, including Pashinian’s escalating standoff with the top clergy.
Pashinian’s political allies first called for an end to the government funding and Shoghakat’s broadcasts last year during massive anti-government protests led by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanian. They renewed those calls after Pashinian began pressuring Garegin and other senior clerics in June to resign.
Legal amendments passed by the National Assembly in the first reading abolished Shoghakat’s status of a “public broadcaster” that guaranteed it a slot in the national digital package accessible to TV viewers across the country. This means that the broadcaster will almost certainly be pulled off the air soon.
Two parliament deputies from the ruling Civil Contract party who drafted the amendments have claimed that Shoghakat has small viewership, criticized the quality of its programs and accused the channel of inefficiently using government funding. The channel’s executive director, Many Ghazarian, dismissed these claims last week, saying that they are not backed up by any research or other objective data.
An opposition lawmaker, Lilit Galstian, demanded such evidence from the authors of the bill during a parliament debate on Tuesday.
“If I thought that any justification would convince you to vote in favor [of the amendments,] I would certainly provide it,” replied one of them, Taguhi Ghazarian.
Seven Armenian media associations issued, meanwhile, a joint statement dismissing as “not convincing” and “misleading” the official rationale for stripping Shoghakat of its air frequency.
“In reality, the initiative is based not on the stated financial, managerial, qualitative or operational issues but rather on the obviously political context: the steadily escalating confrontation between the authorities and the Armenian Apostolic Church,” they said.
Ara Shirinian, the head of Armenia’s Public Broadcasting Council, earlier spoke out against ending the government funding for Shoghakat which totaled just 185 million drams ($480,000) last year. He argued that Armenian state television would need much more money to produce the kind of content that is aired by Shoghakat.