Hraparak newspaper editor challenges PM over unproven claims

PanARMENIAN.Net - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has announced plans to sue the newspaper Hraparak over an article titled “Is Pashinyan cheating on his wife?”

Pashinyan stated he would sue the news outlet to demonstrate that "family and spiritual life are principles, not tools for misleading people," and also claimed Catholicos Karekin II had violated his celibacy vow and fathered a child, daring the cleric to sue him in turn.

In response, Hraparak’s editor-in-chief Armine Ohanian wrote: "Add another line and sue me," accusing the Prime Minister of failing to substantiate any of his own claims.

“You ask provocative questions about the Catholicos daily, but our reporter can’t raise rhetorical questions? You and your wife publish unproven allegations about others—accusing clergy of pedophilia, saying there are 12,000 draft dodgers, former officials sold children, and foreign agents operated in Artsakh. None of these were proven,” Ohanian wrote.

The controversial Hraparak article argued that moral conduct matters for a national leader and justified its publication by referencing Pashinyan’s own public accusations against the Catholicos. The article speculated on past rumors of Pashinyan’s alleged infidelity and challenged the double standard.