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  • F18News: NK- Did Armenian priest beat Baptist conscientious objector

    FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway
    http://www.forum18.org/

    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

    ================================================
    Thursday 6 January 2005
    NAGORNO-KARABAKH: DID ARMENIAN PRIEST BEAT BAPTIST CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR?

    An Armenian Apostolic Church military chaplain, Fr Petros Yezegyan, has
    vehemently denied to Forum 18 News Service that he beat up a Baptist, Gagik
    Mirzoyan, who refused on religious grounds to do military service in the
    unrecognised Nagorno-Karabakh republic's army. Fr Yezegyan admitted talking
    to Mirzoyan for some hours, and Baptist sources have told Forum 18 that
    "for the final hour and a half the priest beat the brother so badly
    that blood flowed from his nose and mouth". Baptists have also stated
    that this was the second beating Mirzoyan received, the first being by a
    unit commander who assaulted him after he refused to abandon his faith and
    to serve in the army. Relatives have been refused information on where
    Mirzoyan currently is, and the Defence Ministry would only tell Forum 18
    that he "is still alive."

    NAGORNO-KARABAKH: DID ARMENIAN PRIEST BEAT BAPTIST CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR?

    By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service

    Armenian Apostolic military chaplain Fr Petros Yezegyan has vigorously
    denied Baptist claims that he beat church member Gagik Mirzoyan for his
    refusal to swear the military oath and put on uniform after being called up
    to military service in the army of the unrecognised Nagorno-Karabakh
    Republic. "I did not beat him - that is a lie," Fr Yezegyan told
    Forum 18 News Service from the region on 4 January. "Why are the
    Baptists saying this?" The priest admitted he spoke to Mirzoyan for
    some hours on 25 December about his faith and why he was refusing military
    service, but local Baptists told Forum 18 on 3 January that "for the
    final hour and a half the priest beat the brother so badly that blood
    flowed from his nose and mouth". When Mirzoyan told Fr Yezegyan he
    would lodge a complaint, the Baptists say the priest responded: "You
    won't get anywhere."

    Leaping to Fr Yezegyan's defence was the Armenian Apostolic archbishop of
    Karabakh, Parkev Martirosyan. "I don't believe he could have beaten
    anyone, that's absurd," he told Forum 18 from the town of Shusha near
    the capital Stepanakert on 4 January. "Had he done so it would be a
    very serious issue which would go straight to the head of the Church, the
    Catholicos."

    The Baptists told Forum 18 that this was the second beating Mirzoyan
    received since being called up on 6 December. They report that one of the
    unit's commanders assaulted him on 15 December after he rejected attempts
    to pressure him to abandon his faith and to serve in the army.

    No official would give Forum 18 the contact number for Lieutenant-Colonel
    Armen Seiranyan, the commander of the education unit in the town of
    Khodjali near Stepanakert where the Baptists say the beatings took place.

    The republic's Defence Ministry refused all comment on Mirzoyan's case.
    Andreas (last name unknown), the duty officer who answered the telephone at
    the ministry on 4 January, consulted with colleagues before declining
    comment and refused to transfer the call to any other department of the
    ministry. On repeated questioning from Forum 18, the officer said only that
    Mirzoyan is still alive, but declined to say where he is being held. He
    also declined to say what would now happen to him.

    Mirzoyan's relatives tried to visit him at the education unit on 31
    December, but found he was no longer there. They told Forum 18 they
    received "no clear reply" to their questions as to where he had
    been transferred. Fr Yezegyan told Forum 18 Mirzoyan had been moved to
    another unit, but declined to say which one or whether he was in hospital
    or in prison.

    The Baptists added that the local post office refused to accept a telegram
    to the Defence Ministry from Mirzoyan's mother about the assaults on her
    son.

    Andreas of the defence ministry insisted that all young men in Karabakh
    must serve in the armed force with no exceptions. "Anyone who refuses
    to swear the oath and take up weapons is a traitor and should be
    sentenced," he told Forum 18 from Stepanakert. "It is clear they
    will be sentenced."

    Such a view was backed by Archbishop Martirosyan. "It is the law of
    the state that everyone must join the army. Everyone must abide by the
    law," he told Forum 18. "Nagorno-Karabakh is a war-zone," he
    added, referring to the unresolved dispute between the largely ethnic
    Armenian population of Karabakh and the Azerbaijani authorities, who fought
    a bitter war from 1989 to 1994 for control of the territory. "Armenia
    has adopted a law on alternative service but there isn't such a law here.
    Given the continuing state of war, I don't think such a law is appropriate
    here."

    But Nagorno-Karabakh's deputy foreign minister Masis Mailyan, disagreed,
    insisting that Armenia's alternative service law also applied in the
    region. "Laws on subjects that form part of Armenia's obligations
    under the Council of Europe also extend to the Nagorno-Karabakh
    Republic," he told Forum 18 from Stepanakert on 5 January. But he
    insisted that the Karabakh armed forces remain under local control, not
    under control from Armenia. Mailyan said he had no information on
    Mirzoyan's case but promised to find out more.

    Fr Yezegyan told Forum 18 that in the wake of Mirzoyan's refusal to serve
    he had been brought in "as a military priest" at the request of
    the Defence Ministry "to find out to what faith he belonged". He
    said that in their long conversation, he had explained "a lot" to
    Mirzoyan. "He's not a Baptist - he's just pretending," the priest
    said of Mirzoyan. "He's not a believer in the way he should be. A real
    believer does not act against the state." He insisted that Mirzoyan
    - and other young Karabakhis - should "take up arms, fight
    the enemy and defend the fatherland".

    Fr Yezegyan - a citizen of Armenia - maintained that he had the
    right to expound his views in the army of Nagorno-Karabakh as he had been
    sent by the military chaplains' department at the headquarters of the
    Armenian Church at Echmiadzin in Armenia.

    Nagorno-Karabakh has been under martial law since 1992. The presidential
    decree imposing martial law - renewed annually by the parliament in
    Stepanakert - imposes restrictions on civil liberties, including
    banning the activity of "religious sects and unregistered
    organisations", banning demonstrations and imposing media
    censorship.

    Officials maintain that only "registered organisations" are
    allowed to hold meetings, while Karabakh's 1997 religion law requires
    religious groups to gain registration before they can function. Among
    religious communities, only the Armenian Apostolic Church -
    effectively Karabakh's state church - has such registration with the
    local justice ministry.

    Mirzoyan's congrgation - which belongs to the Council of Churches
    Baptists, who refuse on principle to register with the state authorities in
    post-Soviet countries - has faced repeated harassment from the
    Karabakh authorities. In the latest incident, the local police raided the
    Stepanakert church last September, confiscating religious literature and
    questioning church members (see F18News 27 September 2004
    http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=420).

    Other faiths - including Pentecostal Christians and Jehovah's
    Witnesses - have faced problems operating in Karabakh, though
    pressures have generally eased in recent years.

    A printer-friendly map of the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh is
    available at
    http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=azerba
    within the map titled 'Azerbaijan'.
    (END)

    © Forum 18 News Service. All rights reserved.

    You may reproduce or quote this article provided that credit is given to
    F18News http://www.forum18.org/

    Past and current Forum 18 information can be found at
    http://www.forum18.org/
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