FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway
The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one’s belief or religion
The right to join together and express one’s belief
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Monday 21 March 2005
ARMENIA: NEW WAVE OF JEHOVAH’S WITNESS SENTENCES
Five young Jehovah’s Witnesses are known to have been imprisoned for
refusing military service so far in March, the largest number in a single
month since last October and in continuing defiance of Armenia’s
commitment to the Council of Europe to end imprisonment of conscientious
objectors. One, Arman Agazaryan, a 28-year-old dentist, is the only
breadwinner in his extended family of six, his lawyer Rustam Khachatryan
told Forum 18 News Service. Khachatryan also complains of the treatment of
Jehovah’s Witnesses who have opted for the alternative military service,
saying they remain under military control, have to serve far longer than
those in the army and are banned from joining their fellow Jehovah’s
Witnesses for worship. There is no civilian alternative service.
ARMENIA: NEW WAVE OF JEHOVAH’S WITNESS SENTENCES
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service
In the biggest wave of sentences of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Armenia since
last October, at least five young men have been handed prison terms of up
to two years since the beginning of March, Forum 18 News Service has
learnt. All five refused to serve in the army or do the alternative
military service, which they argue is not the genuine civilian alternative
which Armenia is committed to provide. Among them is a 28-year-old dentist
from the capital Yerevan, Arman Agazaryan, who was called up in the wake
of a defence ministry order last November that doctors who had previously
been exempted from serving in the army after studying medicine at the
academy can now be drafted up to the age of 35. “He was deliberately
targeted for conscription and sentenced because he is a Jehovah’s
Witness,” his lawyer Rustam Khachatryan told Forum 18 from Yerevan on
18 March. “No other dentists have been taken.”
After Agazaryan refused to be drafted into the army on grounds of
religious conscience, he was arrested on 23 December 2004 and was tried in
Yerevan in mid-March, receiving a prison sentence of one and a half years.
“Agazaryan supported his wife, his seven-year old son, his parents
and his wife’s mother on his income,” Khachatryan told Forum 18.
“Now they have lost their only breadwinner to prison.” He is
being held in Nubarashen prison, where most other Jehovah’s Witness
prisoners are incarcerated.
Like all but one of the current prisoners, Agazaryan was sentenced under
Article 327 part I of the criminal code, which reads: “Evading a
recurring call to emergency military service, or educational or military
training, without a legal basis for being relieved of this service, shall
incur a fine in the amount of 300 to 500 minimum [monthly] wages or arrest
for up to two months or imprisonment for up to two years.”
Sergei Hovhanissyan was sentenced to one and a half years in prison in
early March and is now held at Nubarashen. Gevork Manukyan was sentenced
to two years’ imprisonment on 16 March and is now in Nubarashen. Arsen
Gasparyan was sentenced in the town of Vedi in Ararat region to one and a
half years in prison on 17 March. He too is imprisoned at Nubarashen. Also
sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in March was Ashot Torgomyan.
Armenia last year introduced the alternative military service of three and
a half years’ duration (compared to two years’ military service) under
defence ministry control, which became available from 1 July. The
government insisted that this met its commitment made to the Council of
Europe when it joined to introduce a civilian service of non-punitive
length by January 2004. Its refusal to meet its obligations to provide a
non-punitive civilian service have repeatedly been condemned by officials
of the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in
Europe and human rights groups (see F18News 19 October 2004
).
Some Jehovah’s Witnesses have been prepared to do the alternative service,
believing that although it was not ideal the actual work handed to those
doing it was non-military and therefore did not violate their pacifist
beliefs. However, Khachatryan insists that all but one of the 18 Jehovah’s
Witnesses who opted for this alternative service are
“discontented”. “They remain under military control –
which means it is not civilian service, the term of three and a half years
is not in line with European norms and while serving all but one of them
have been banned from attending Jehovah’s Witness meetings,” he told
Forum 18. “It’s worse than the army.”
He said that as lawyer to four of the young men carrying out their
alternative service at a mental hospital in Yerevan, he had gone to see
the hospital head, Karapetyan, and the chief doctor Aleksanyan. “They
told me categorically the four were doing military service under the
control of the defence ministry,” Khachatryan told Forum 18. “Dr
Aleksanyan told me they wouldn’t be allowing the men to have a quiet
life.”
Khachatryan complained that the four were allowed no contact with their
fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses, and were banned from preaching their faith or
meeting for worship. Nor are they granted any holiday.
Although the four are not being given military training, they must wear
special dark blue alternative service uniforms. “By law they
shouldn’t be looking after the mentally ill at all, as special training
for this should be given,” he added. “They’ve been given no
training.”
Meanwhile, two Jehovah’s Witnesses – Hovhannes and Arsen (last names
unknown) were beaten on the street by the deputy police chief of the
southern town of Megri, Khachatryan also told Forum 18. While the two were
talking on the street, a car pulled up and out got the deputy police chief
and two other men, who beat the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They then left.
Shortly afterwards, police officers returned and took the pair to the
police station, where they were held for an hour and again beaten before
being freed.
Khachatryan said the two were lodging complaints to the minister of the
interior and the prosecutor’s office.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses – who claim that up to 15,000 people attend
their meetings in Armenia – have faced widespread official and
popular opposition to their activity over the past decade. Last October,
after a nine-year battle, the group finally managed to get state
registration (see F18News 12 October 2004
).
A printer-friendly map of Armenia is available at
las/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=armeni
(END )
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