BILL ON REFUGEES AND REFUGE TO BE SUBMITTED TO RA NATIONAL ASSEMBLY SOON
Noyan Tapan
April 15, 2008
YEREVAN, APRIL 15, NOYAN TAPAN. With the assistance of the Danish
Refugee Council, the Migration Agency of the RA Ministry of Territorial
Administration has worked out RA bill On Refugees and Refuge, which
has been approved by the RA government lately. As Gagik Yeganian,
the agency head, said at the April 15 press conference, the bill will
be submitted to the RA National Assembly soon.
According to G. Yeganian, the law in force has a number of
shortcomings, therefore the system of seeking a refuge has a number
of problems in Armenia. He said that one of the system’s problems
is that the pivotal notions connected with granting a refuge are not
legislatively determined.
Besides, all necessary procedures necessary for granting a refuge
are not clarified.
G. Yeganian said that since 1999, more than 1000 foreigners, from
Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Cuba, and other countries, have applied to
Armenia for receiving a refuge. 800 out of them received the respective
status in Armenia. Only in 2007, 289 applications were received from
foreign citizens in the agency’s Department of Seeking a Refuge, 271
out of them for a temporary refuge, 18 for receiving a status of a
refugee. All people seeking a temporary refuge are citizens of Iraq,
who have been given a right of a refuge for one year. And only one
person applying for receiving a status of a refugee has been given
that status.
It was also mentioned that people seeking a refuge are for one month
accomodated at special dwellings created in 2000, for the purpose
of passing medical examination and holding document checkings in a
one-month term.
Then, before the end of the discussion of applications on receiving a
status of a refugee they are accomodated at temporary dwellings. People
seeking a refuge receive a certificate of a seeker of refugee’s status,
a lump sum monetary assistance, 10 thousand drams (more than 30 USD),
free translation and lawyer services.