EurasiaNet, NY
March 10 2006
NEW ALTERNATIVE SERVICE FALLS FLAT IN ARMENIA
Emil Danielyan 3/10/06
Young men refusing to serve in the armed forces for religious reasons
are again being prosecuted in Armenia, despite the introduction
nearly two years ago of a legal alternative to compulsory military
service. Conscientious objectors, mainly Jehovah’s Witnesses, are
refusing to enlist for alternative civilian service on the grounds
that it is controlled by the Armenian military. About 50 of them are
currently in jail or are awaiting trial.
Local and international human rights organizations have long
criticized the authorities in Yerevan for jailing conscientious
objectors. In 2001, the Council of Europe made elimination of the
practice a key condition for admitting Armenia as a member. However,
an Armenian law on alternative service, which came into force in July
2004, has so far failed to address the problem. Council of Europe
officials say it does not fully meet European standards and should be
amended.
The law gave male citizens who refuse mandatory military service two
options: to perform non-combat duties inside army bases for three
years or to spend three and a half years at civilian institutions.
After the law came into force, 22 Jehovah’s Witnesses opted for the
latter option and were assigned to special civilian hospitals,
including Armenia’s largest psychiatric clinic. But they soon
discovered that these facilities are essentially under military
control – regularly checked on by military police officers, confined
to the medical institutions for 24 hours a day and even fed by the
army.
“For young Jehovah’s Witnesses, to be attached to the military in any
form is impossible because that means cooperating with the military,”
said Andre Carbonneau, a Canadian lawyer representing the Jehovah’s
Witnesses in Armenia. That, he added, would run counter to one of the
main tenets of the US-based Christian sect.
That also explains why all 22 men abandoned their places of service
before being arrested in August of last year. Thirteen of the
objectors were tried and controversially sentenced to between two and
three years’ imprisonment under articles of the Armenian Criminal
Code that deal with desertion from military units. The court
sentences occurred before the authorities enacted a legal clause in
January 2006 that declared abandonment of civilian service a crime
punishable by imprisonment.
According to Carbonneau, this constitutes a retroactive enforcement
of the law, illegal under Armenia’s constitution. Acting on the
attorney’s complaint, an Armenian appeals court recently overturned
virtually all of the Jehovah’s Witness convictions by lower courts.
However, it stopped short of ordering the release of the
conscientious objectors, only sending their cases back to
prosecutors. The latter are refusing to set the men free, pending
another trial.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses have responded by lodging an appeal to the
European Court of Human Rights which they hope will order the release
of the men, the only Armenians to date to perform alternative
service. But Carbonneau admitted that there is little they can do
about nearly 30 other Jehovah’s Witnesses, who refused outright to
perform military-controlled civilian duty after the alternative
service law came into force. They are now being kept in pre-trial
detention. “The law on alternative service is not an option for any
conscientious objector,” he said.
Council of Europe bodies monitoring Armenia’s compliance with the
country’s membership obligations appear to share this view. “The
Council of Europe and its monitoring mechanisms consider that the
commitments in this area have not fully been met with the current
legislation,” the head of the Strasbourg-based organization’s Yerevan
office, Bojana Urumova, told EurasiaNet. Urumova said it should be
amended “in a way which will meet European standards and resolve this
issue definitely.” Armenian authorities have to come up with a
“genuine civilian alternative to military service,” she added.
The Armenian government, meanwhile, has drafted amendments to the law
on alternative service that will be debated by parliament later this
year. With government officials refusing to disclose the amendments’
content for the moment, it is not clear whether they will satisfy the
Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Armenian military has always feared that
alternative service could serve as a legal loophole for mass draft
evasion; hence, its desire to strictly regulate the process. In a
December 2004 directive, the chief of the Armenian army staff,
Col.-Gen. Mikael Harutiunian, ordered military officials to regularly
report to him about civilian compliance with regulations that, among
other things, require them to stay in their place of service 24 hours
a day and take leaves of absence only with official permission.
Jehovah’s Witnesses have long been viewed with suspicion by the
authorities and a large part of Armenia’s population, primarily due
to their strong opposition to military service. Many Armenian
politicians and ordinary people alike consider their pacifist
doctrine a serious threat to the national security of a country
locked in a bitter territorial conflict with one of its neighbors,
Azerbaijan. The sect had for years been denied official registration
for that reason.
The government formally legalized it only in October 2004, in a move
that was condemned by the Armenian Apostolic Church. “The activities
of totalitarian religious organizations, including Jehovah’s
Witnesses, run counter to our national and state interests and
aspirations,” the church, to which over 90 percent of Armenians
around the world nominally belong, said in a statement issued at the
time.
In the words of Tigran Harutiunian, a Jehovah’s Witness spokesman in
Armenia, apart from the renewed prosecution of its young male
members, the religious group has faced no government restrictions
since then and currently boasts more than 20,000 Armenian adherents.
“We are happy to be able to freely talk about our faith,” he said.
Editor’s Note: Emil Danielyan is a Yerevan-based journalist and
political analyst.