by David Bishop
Two parliamentarians from the ruling Civil Contract Party, Taguhi Ghazaryan and Sisak Gabrielyan, have introduced a bill in the parliament mandating that there should be only two public broadcasting television channels in the Republic of Armenia. Currently, there are three public broadcasting channels in Armenia: Public Television of Armenia, First Channel News, and Shoghakat.
While Public Television broadcasts general programming and First Channel News is the public news channel, Shoghakat presents cultural and artistic programs, historical documentaries, as well as religious and spiritual content. Shoghakat TV is operated by the Armenian Apostolic Church. This makes it clear why Civil Contract has suddenly decided that Armenia should only have two channels.
While the bill does not directly state that it would defund Shoghakat, it is extremely clear which of the three public channels Civil Contract intends to eliminate. In fact, they have openly discussed this extensively, and even in the context of this bill, politicians have openly discussed how the channel to cut will obviously be Shoghakat. Indeed, one of the cosponsors of the bill, Taguhi Ghazaryan, has stated multiple times that Shoghakat should be defunded, insisting that as a religious channel, Shoghakat “doesn’t represent all citizens”. 97% of Armenians are Christians, with almost all of those belonging to the Armenian Apostolic Church. Most recent estimates state that over 95% of the population of Armenia are in the Armenian Apostolic Church. This, however, is not representative enough for Civil Contract. Perhaps Civil Contract Party political programming will be more representative of the Armenian people.
Supporters of this proposal have advocated that the 220 million Armenian Dram that Shoghakat receives from the state budget could better be allocated elsewhere, such as to fund the Public Television channel more. 220 million dram is the equivalent of about 575,000 US dollars, not a significant amount compared to the Armenian state budget. However, any amount allocated to an operation of the Armenian Church is too much for the Civil Contract Party.
Uncoincidentally, government discussions of defunding Shoghakat began in earnest soon after Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan announced dissenting views against Pashinyan. Since then, Pashinyan has recently imprisoned an Armenian Orthodox archbishop, Mikael Ajapahian, and has even called for the removal of the Catholicos of all Armenians, Karekin II. The government’s campaign against the Armenian Church is continuing in full swing.
