Today.Az , Azerbaijan
May 23 2009

MP: What tolerance is spoken of if even Russians have been expelled
from Armenia

23 May 2009 [11:06] – Today.Az

"It is clear to everyone today that Armenia is monoethnic", declared
member of Milli Majlis for Human Rights Igbal Agazade, commenting on
the situation of the student’s expulsion Seminary, who visited the
Blue Mosque in Yerevan.

According to the deputy, the monoethnicity as a common practice in
today’s world, can not be perceived as unequivocally normal.

"And the particular case, which occurred with the seminarian in
Echmiadzin, shows that the religious belonging, unfortunately, plays a
big role in political decision-making by leadership of the neighboring
country. These facts clearly indicate the lowest level of tolerance in
Armenian society. We know that all sorts of crimes were committed in
A|rmenia on the basis of religious tolerance".

The MPs warned that this is a very large number of documented facts.

"In particular, Azerbaijani Turks and Muslim Kurds have been
completely expelled from Armenia, there are even no Russians in
Armenia.

The recent incident connected specifically with issues of religion,
once again showed the world that over the whole Caucasus, among all
the nations living there, Armenia distinguished by their poor attitude
to people who do not belong to the titular nation and religion. And
this applies to all areas of life. Therefore, other Caucasus people
face great problems in a strive to establish peace".

According to him, for example, in the same neighboring Azerbaijan,
Georgia people find it easier to respect the representatives of
different religions for some unknown reasons.

"Actually, this is an ancient principle of coexistence of different
peoples on not very large Caucasus. And in this sense, the behavior of
Yerevan does not knits with the recently launched towards Eastern
Partnership program. Such actions run counter to capacity and
prospects for our region. Here one thing is clear – Armenia is trying
to present itself as one of ancient civilized peoples of the world,
but in reality we see that the Armenians do not have enough even basic
tolerance, to get on with close neighbors that differ from them by
religious or ethnic grounds", says deputy MM.

/Day.Az/

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