Baptist finished military service in Karabakh army

14-01-2008 13:39:12 – KarabakhOpen

Gagik Mirzoyan, a Baptist, has finished military service in the
Karabakh army without taking an oath. He got a military ID card where
nothing is mentioned in the line of `oath’. On September 5, 2005 Gagik
Mirzoyan from the village of Chailu, Martakert born in 1986, refused to
take an oath after 9 months of service, was tried in accordance with
Article 364 of the NKR Crime Code and sentenced to one year.

Gagik Mirzoyan explains that the Bible prohibits swearing.
Nevertheless, he was willing to continue his military service in the
NKR Army of Defense without taking an oath.

The Civic Action Center NGO had appealed to the NKR president asking to
pardon Gagik Mirzoyan and `considering his sincere willingness to serve
in the army (of which the members of the human rights organization
became convinced during the regular talks with the prisoner during the
monitoring of penitentiaries), acquit him and enable him to continue
his military service’. Gagik Mirzoyan was released and continued his
service.

The U.S. State Department’s annual report on religious freedom for 2007
included Karabakh as well. The special status of the Armenian Apostolic
Church in Nagorno-Karabakh was mentioned in the document. `During the
reporting period, in the occupied region of Nagorno-Karabakh–a
predominantly ethnic Armenian area over which the Government of
Azerbaijan had no control–officials reportedly released jailed Baptist
conscientious objector Gagik Mirzoyan and transferred him to a military
unit to complete the remainder of his military service,’ runs the
report. `Also in the occupied region of Nagorno-Karabakh, Jehovah’s
Witness and conscientious objector Areg Hovhanesyan remained in jail
after being sentenced in 2005 to 4 years in prison for evading military
service, a sentence he did not appeal,’ runs the report.