Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Armenia- Imprisonment, no registration, and no identity docs for JWs

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Armenia- Imprisonment, no registration, and no identity docs for JWs

    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

    =================================================

    Tuesday 3 August 2004
    ARMENIA: IMPRISONMENT, NO REGISTRATION, AND NO IDENTITY DOCUMENTS FOR JW'S

    Armenia continues to jail Jehovah's Witness conscientious objectors, in
    clear breach of its Council of Europe and OSCE commitments, although human
    rights ombudsman Larisa Alaverdyan has denied to Forum 18 News Service that
    the commitments have been broken. The head of the state religious affairs
    department, Hranush Kharatyan, has rejected the right upheld in
    international human rights agreements of religious believers to spread
    their beliefs by peaceful means. An alternative service law is
    theoretically in force, but in practice cannot yet be applied. Jehovah's
    Witnesses see the alternative service terms as excessive punishment for
    their refusal to do military service, and are also being denied identity
    documents - necessary eg. for employment or marriage - on completing
    jail terms. Also, for the twelfth time since 1995, Jehovah's Witneses have
    been denied state registration. Stefan Buchmayer, the OSCE's Yerevan human
    rights officer, told Forum 18 that "one cannot find real legal
    justification for the refusal."

    ARMENIA: IMPRISONMENT, NO REGISTRATION, AND NO IDENTITY DOCUMENTS FOR JW'S

    By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service

    Armenia's Jehovah's Witness community has just received its twelfth
    registration denial since 1995, with fourteen members in prison for
    refusing military service on religious grounds and a further eleven
    expecting to be tried for refusing the lengthy and harsh alternative
    service, the terms of which they see as a punishment for refusing military
    service. Problems for those completing prison terms also seem to be
    mounting. Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service that seventeen
    recently freed young men are being refused identity documents (internal
    passports) because they are not registered with the military commissariat,
    while a further seven who have identity documents are being refused
    residency registration, a requirement in Armenia.

    Officials blame the Jehovah's Witnesses for allegedly failing to try to
    resolve these problems with the government. "If those being released
    are not getting passports they have put themselves in that situation,"
    the human rights ombudsman Larisa Alaverdyan told Forum 18 from the capital
    Yerevan on 2 August. Hranush Kharatyan, head of the government's religious
    affairs department, told Forum 18 the same day that the Jehovah's Witnesses
    had failed to respond to her invitations to discuss how to amend their
    statute to get registration.

    Fifteen Jehovah's Witnesses from various parts of Armenia, who did not
    possess an internal passport before they were called up by the army, found
    that after their release the local military commissariat refused to issue a
    certificate to them until they are registered with the military
    commissariat, saying they will not issues the certificates until the
    Jehovah's Witnesses have served their time. The passport office will not
    issue an internal passport without this certificate. In two further cases,
    both in central Yerevan, two young men who had passports before their
    prison terms were refused them when they asked for their return. Both have
    made official complaints to the military commissariat and the general
    prosecutor.

    "This is a clear violation of their human dignity - they can't
    do anything without a passport," Jehovah's Witness lawyer Rustam
    Khachatryan told Forum 18 from Yerevan on 2 August. "They can't get a
    job or even marry. But our clever state does allow people to pay taxes
    without a passport." He said the military commissariats are obliged to
    give out these certificates, but said they deliberately refuse to give them
    to Jehovah's Witnesses.

    Human rights ombudsman Alaverdyan agreed that the lack of a passport would
    create "an awful lot of problems" in Armenia. "People can't
    leave the country, can't vote, can't engage in any legal transactions, for
    example." But she said the Jehovah's Witnesses have not reported the
    problem to her and unless they do she can take no action. Yet she insisted
    they have to comply with the law and get the required certificates from the
    military commissariat like any other young men.

    The Jehovah's Witnesses have been applying for registration as a religious
    community since the early 1990s, but their opposition to military service
    and what many regard as their aggressive style of proselytism have offended
    state officials and the leadership of the dominant Armenian Apostolic
    Church.

    Their latest application was submitted for the required "expert
    assessment" to the government religious affairs department on 16
    March, three months after a meeting between state officials and the
    Jehovah's Witnesses organised by the Yerevan office of the Organisation for
    Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) tried to break the registration
    deadlock. The religious affairs department concluded on 24 March that the
    Jehovah's Witness statute was in accordance with the law. "We didn't
    refuse the application - we gave a positive view about
    registration," its head, Hranush Kharatyan, told Forum 18.

    The Jehovah's Witnesses then submitted the application to the State
    Registry of Legal Entities at the Ministry of Justice on 18 May, but it
    ruled at the end of June that the statute contradicted the religion law and
    other laws. Gyurgen Sarkisyan, who maintains the State Registry, had
    previously told Forum 18 that "with an expert conclusion signed by the
    minister and all documents, they will be registered" (see F18News 4
    February 2004 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=245).
    Sarkisyan's phone was not being answered when Forum 18 tried to speak to
    him on 2 August.

    Despite having signed the expert assessment approving the application,
    Kharatyan of the religious affairs department insisted to Forum 18 that a
    provision in the statute describing the Jehovah's Witness practice of
    door-to-door preaching violates the law. "This amounts to proselytism
    and the religion law forbids this," she declared. "They don't
    have the right to do this."

    She flatly rejected suggestions that in a democratic country, believers of
    any faith have the right to spread their beliefs by peaceful means.
    "We keep getting a mass of complaints that Jehovah's Witnesses come to
    people's homes every day and bombard them with visits," she claimed.
    Kharatyan also argued that other provisions of their statute violated the
    law, although she maintained that the Jehovah's Witness rejection of
    military service was not an issue.

    Stefan Buchmayer, human rights officer at the OSCE office in Yerevan,
    reported that the denial of registration was for "technical
    reasons" which the Justice Ministry did not fully explain. "The
    Jehovah's Witnesses cleared the expert assessment, so registration with the
    justice ministry should have been only a formality," told Forum 18 on
    2 August. "One cannot find real legal justification for the
    refusal." He said his office has been closely following this issue.
    "Unfortunately it has dragged on for many years."

    Despite its 2001 commitment to the Council of Europe to free all imprisoned
    conscientious objectors and introduce civilian alternative service by
    January 2004 (see F18News 19 April 2004
    http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=301 ), the courts have
    continued to jail young male Jehovah's Witnesses. As late as 26 May 2004,
    Ruslan Avetisyan was sentenced to two years' imprisonment and is now being
    held in Nubarashen labour camp, Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18. Also
    held in the same camp is Mikael Lazarian, sentenced to two years'
    imprisonment the same month. The other twelve prisoners are being held in
    labour camp in Kosh. Other Jehovah's Witnesses freed early from prison for
    good conduct are required to report regularly to the local police station.
    On 1 April 2003, a foreign ministry spokeswoman told Forum 18 that a
    "full stop" would be put to the imprisonment of conscientious
    objectors by the end of 2003 (see F18News 1 April 2003
    http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=22).

    Parliament's deputy speaker Tigran Torosyan, who heads the Armenian
    delegation to the Council of Europe, told Jehovah's Witness representatives
    at the Council of Europe parliamentary assembly in Strasbourg on 22 June
    that all conscientious objector prisoners would be freed once the new law
    on alternative service came into force on 1 July.

    Alaverdyan, who said she has visited 21 imprisoned Jehovah's Witnesses
    since taking up the post of ombudsman, claimed there is a "new
    situation" now that the alternative service law has taken effect.
    "The situation has changed completely," she told Forum 18.
    However, the fourteen Jehovah's Witnesses remain in labour camp.

    Moreover, Buchmayer of the OSCE pointed out that, although the alternative
    service law theoretically came into force on 1 July, in practice it cannot
    be applied until promised amendments are approved by parliament. "This
    will not now be until parliament's autumn session at the earliest," he
    told Forum 18, "unless a special session is called, which is unlikely
    for such an issue."

    Buchmeyer categorically stated that the continued imprisonment of
    conscientious objectors violates Armenia's commitments to the Council of
    Europe and OSCE commitments, a point rejected by Alaverdyan.

    In a new development, eleven Jehovah's Witnesses called up in recent months
    have refused the alternative service offered to them, regarding unspecified
    work - perhaps cleaning sewerage systems or working in psychiatric
    homes for three and a half years under military supervision - as
    excessive punishment for their refusal to do military service. "This
    does not meet European norms," Khachatryan told Forum 18. The length
    of the proposed alternative service has been criticised by the Council of
    Europe (see F18News 4 February 2004
    http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=245).

    Khachatryan noted that Aram Manukyan, a Jehovah's Witness from Yerevan
    called up in May, is expected to face trial in the next ten days. He said a
    further four are awaiting the opening of criminal cases against them, while
    six more are likely to face similar cases in the near future.

    Both ombudsman Alaverdyan and Kharatyan of the religious affairs department
    seemed annoyed at Forum 18's questions about the Jehovah's Witnesses'
    difficulties. "Why don't the Jehovah's Witnesses work with us to
    resolve their problems, instead to complaining to people like you?"
    Alaverdyan asked Forum 18. "Organisations like yours seem only
    interested in having continuing cases to take up rather than resolving them
    properly." Kharatyan echoed these sentiments. "Why don't the
    Jehovah's Witnesses come to us if they want to resolve these issues?"
    she exclaimed. "I absolutely don't understand why they go running to
    others to complain and don't come to us." She said her office had
    helped other religious communities bring their registration applications
    into line with the law.

    A printer-friendly map of Armenia is available at
    http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=armeni
    (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/
Working...
X