The National Assembly of Armenia has passed in the first reading a bill amending the Law on Audiovisual Media, which proposes removing "Shoghakat" TV from the list of public broadcasters.
The draft law was authored by MPs Taguhi Ghazaryan and Sisak Gabrielyan from the ruling Civil Contract party. The proposal aims to reduce the number of public television channels from three to two. Currently, the public broadcasters include First Channel, Shoghakat (with a spiritual and cultural focus), and the news-oriented "Lurer" channel.
The vote passed with 63 in favor, 31 against, and no abstentions, according to Sputnik Armenia.
According to the bill, the goal is to establish a more limited number of public broadcasters, retaining only two, and to eliminate the requirement for content focused on education and culture. The justification states that this change would result in "Shoghakat" TV being excluded from the list of public broadcasters.
Several media and journalist organizations, including the Journalists’ Union of Armenia, have opposed the initiative, calling for its withdrawal from parliament.
Earlier, MP Lilit Galstyan from the opposition "Armenia" faction said: “The legislative initiative by Civil Contract MPs to shut down Shoghakat TV is not just an attack on the Armenian Apostolic Church, but on the Armenian people, who are being deprived of educational and cultural programming.”
Independent MP Gegham Manukyan said during the debate, “If you shut down Shoghakat, I won’t be able to convince the public that the state isn’t taking action against the Church.”
