FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway
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
===============================================
Friday 6 December 2013
ARMENIA: BUILDING PLACES OF WORSHIP “NOT APPROPRIATE”
Two of three applications by the Jehovah’s Witness community in Armenia’s
capital Yerevan to build places of worship were deemed “not appropriate”
because of “precedents” of “complaints and intolerance” from the public.
The third was rejected because of unresolved “construction concerns” on the
street. Andranik Kasaryan, head of the city’s Architecture Department, told
Forum 18 News Service the applications had been rejected because of
“earlier complaints about sects” after the Department had given building
permission. “Residents complained to us that they don’t want a religious
organisation next door to them.” One Armenian Catholic told Forum 18 of the
“unwritten rule” that Catholicos Karekin, head of the dominant Armenian
Apostolic Church, must give permission before non-Armenian Apostolic places
of worship can be built. “Officials try not to allow non-Armenian Apostolic
religious communities to have officially-recognised visible places of
worship,” human rights defender Stepan Danielyan told Forum 18.
ARMENIA: BUILDING PLACES OF WORSHIP “NOT APPROPRIATE”
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service
Armenia’s Jehovah’s Witness community has gone to court to challenge three
building denials by the municipality Architecture Department in the capital
Yerevan, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Hearings are due to begin in
January 2014. Two of the rejections – written on the same day in December
2012 – cite “precedents” of “complaints and intolerance” from the public
over earlier building approvals for places of worship.
One Armenian Catholic told Forum 18 of the “unwritten rule” that Catholicos
Karekin, the head of the dominant Armenian Apostolic Church, must give
permission before non-Armenian Apostolic places of worship can be built.
Stepan Danielyan of the Yerevan-based Collaboration for Democracy Centre,
who has long worked on freedom of religion or belief concerns, says such
refusals to permit building of places of worship are part of a pattern.
“Officials try not to allow non-Armenian Apostolic religious communities to
have officially-recognised visible places of worship,” he told Forum 18
from Yerevan on 27 November. “If they exist at all, they want them to
remain invisible.”
A member of a non-Christian organisation, who asked that the community not
be identified, noted that while it can maintain a place of worship in
Yerevan, the building has no notice or identifying signs outside which a
passer-by might see.
Danielyan pointed to the impossibility Yerevan’s Armenian Catholic
community faced trying to get permission for a building plot in the city
centre several years ago. He said permission was denied and the community
eventually settled for a plot in the northern city district of Kanaker,
where building is yet to begin.
Members of several religious communities, who asked not to be identified,
said it was possible to get a building in an individual’s name and then
turn it into a place of worship. But getting permission to build a new
place of worship was very difficult.
The telephone of government religious affairs official Vardan Astsatryan of
the Department for Ethnic Minorities and Religious Affairs went unanswered
each time Forum 18 called between 27 November and 6 December.
Commitments fulfilled?
Armenia appears to have finally fulfilled one of its commitments it made
when it joined the Council of Europe to introduce a fully civilian
alternative service and to free all its imprisoned conscientious objectors
by January 2004 (see F18News 28 November 2013
).
However, the obstructions to building places of worship and other
difficulties non-Armenian Apostolic communities continue to face indicate a
failure to fully implement another Council of Europe commitment Armenia
made at the same time – “to ensure that all churches or religious
communities, in particular those referred to as ‘non-traditional’, may
practise their religion without discrimination”.
“No complaints”?
However, dismissing claims that non-Armenian Apostolic communities face
difficulties building is Hovhannes Hovhannisyan, a religious studies
professor at Yerevan State University and a lay member of the Armenian
Apostolic Church. “I know of no such complaints,” he told Forum 18 from
Yerevan on 4 December. He insists that no unofficial “permission” is needed
from the Armenian Apostolic Church before any non-Armenian Apostolic
community is allowed to build.
Hovhannisyan pointed out that Yerevan’s city centre has few vacant plots,
so is difficult for anyone to build there, including the Armenian Apostolic
Church. Nevertheless, he said, the Armenian Evangelical Church had bought
the former United States embassy on one of Yerevan’s central avenues, while
the city’s Word of Life church was completing a “massive” new church
building.
Word of Life told Forum 18 that their new Yerevan church is due to be
officially opened on 25 December. “Protestants don’t generally have
building problems,” the church member told Forum 18 on 27 November.
Told of the three Jehovah’s Witness building rejections, Hovhannisyan
responded: “Maybe it’s special for Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
Three building rejections
Yerevan’s Jehovah’s Witness community lodged applications with the city’s
Architecture and Urban Development Department to build three places of
worship, in the city’s Erebuni, Davtashen and Nor Nork districts. However,
on 20 December 2012, in separate replies, the head of the Architecture
Department, Andranik Kasaryan, rejected the Erebuni and Davtashen
applications based on what he said might be the reaction of the local
population.
The reply to the Erebuni application, seen by Forum 18, declares: “Taking
into consideration the precedents, namely that constructing a publicly
zoned religious building resulted in complaints and intolerance from the
public, the Yerevan Municipality Architecture and Urban Development
Department finds that the construction of such a building in an inhabited
area is not appropriate.”
The reply to the Davtashen application, also seen by Forum 18, is similarly
worded, drawing attention to the fact that the proposed site is in a
“populated area”.
The Nor Nork response, dated 21 December 2012 and also seen by Forum 18,
claims that the Architecture Department is “resolving construction
concerns” on the street where the Jehovah’s Witness community proposed to
build. It said the application could be addressed “only after the
completion of the aforementioned process”.
“Complaints about sects”
Kasaryan, head of the Architecture Department, insisted that the Jehovah’s
Witness applications had been rejected because of “earlier complaints about
sects” after the Department had given building permission. “Residents
complained to us that they don’t want a religious organisation next door to
them,” he told Forum 18 from Yerevan on 27 November. “If it had been the
Armenian Apostolic Church, I don’t believe there would have been
complaints.”
Kasaryan rejected any suggestion that the denial of permission to Jehovah’s
Witnesses represented discrimination. However, he refused to discuss how
far “intolerance” from residents should be allowable in rejecting building
applications. “These cases are now in court, so you will have to talk to
our Legal Department.”
More generally, Kasaryan denied that building non-Armenian Apostolic places
of worship in Yerevan is impossible. He claimed that “no-one else” apart
from Jehovah’s Witnesses had had applications rejected and pointed to
permission he said his Department had given to a church built by the
Servants of God.
Despite repeated calls to the Municipality Legal Department between 27
November and 5 December, Forum 18 was unable to reach its head, Zaven
Arakelyan. Each time officials said he was out of the office and no-one
else could answer any questions about why three Jehovah’s Witness building
applications were rejected.
Court
In response to the rejections, the Jehovah’s Witness community lodged a
suit against the Municipality Architecture Department to Yerevan’s
Administrative Court. The case is due to begin on the morning of 14 January
2014 under Judge Samvel Hovakimyan.
“Without Catholicos it would be all but impossible”
While Yerevan’s Armenian Catholic parish hopes to begin work on its
first-ever church in the city soon, the Armenian Catholic cathedral in the
north-western city of Gyumri is nearing completion, local Catholics told
Forum 18. The city is in the traditional heartland of the Armenian Catholic
community (which was effectively banned in the Soviet period).
“The cathedral has been difficult to build,” one Catholic told Forum 18
from the city on 27 November. “There’s an unwritten rule that the
permission of the Catholicos [head of the Armenian Apostolic Church] is
needed.” The Catholic said that without such approval, local authorities
would create “endless” obstructions, requiring repeated changes to the
building plans. The Catholics secured the approval of Catholicos Karekin
and building permission followed. “Without the Catholicos it would be all
but impossible.”
“National security”?
In recent years, a number of religious meetings in rented venues have had
to be cancelled after pressure from state officials or priests of the
Armenian Apostolic Church. In April 2009, a Southern Baptist choir, the
Singing Men of Oklahoma, conducted a tour of Armenia organised by Armenia’s
Evangelical Church. However, pressure from the Armenian Church forced the
cancellation of more than half the planned concerts.
In 2010, three Jehovah’s Witness conventions had to be cancelled, while in
2011 two were cancelled under pressure from Armenian Apostolic priests, the
police and local officials (see F18News 12 July 2011
).
Members of a non-governmental organisation linked to the Evangelical Church
were summoned for questioning by National Security Service (NSS) officers
in 2010, which one NSS officer reportedly considered “normal”. In a report
on Armenia published on 8 February 2011, the Council of Europe European
Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) recommended that “the
National Security Service refrain from monitoring religious activity which
does not appear to constitute a specific threat”.
Are police and prosecutors neutral?
Members of some religious communities complain that police take a selective
approach to enforcing the law. On 11 September, a man who entered the
church building in Yerevan’s Arabkir District armed with a knife threatened
to kill Protestant pastor Levon Bardakjian (he was not present at the
time), he and other Protestant leaders told Forum 18. Police detained the
man, telling church members he had been ordered sent to psychiatric
detention.
Two days later, what they say was an attempt to kidnap the church secretary
occurred. On 18 September, a car belonging to a church-run charity was
reportedly shot at in the central town of Sevan and a window broken while
the driver was inside.
On 15 October, the same man who had allegedly threatened to kill Pastor
Bardakjian came to a cafe next to the church, where church members were
gathered, asking for him. Church members told Forum 18 they had not been
told the man had been released. At the Office of the Human Rights
Ombudsperson, they learnt to their astonishment that no criminal case had
been launched against the man.
“I’m 100 per cent sure no criminal case was opened simply because I’m a
Protestant pastor,” Bardakjian complained to Forum 18. He said that
although no actions or threats against the church or its members have
happened since 15 October, church members suffer “insecurity, anxiety and
fear”.
Pastor Bardakjian stressed that the attacks immediately followed a 9
September press conference by Archimandrite Komitas Hovnanyan from the
Armenian Church headquarters at Echmiazdin alleging that 220 “cults”
operate in Armenia which receive half a billion US Dollars per year and aim
to destroy the Armenian state.
In November 2010, following false claims in the media that an alleged
murderer in Sevan was a Jehovah’s Witness, Armenian Apostolic priests took
a Shant TV crew to Sevan’s Pentecostal Church. The TV crew did not seek
permission to enter private property where the Church meets, and refused to
leave when asked, so Pastor Vladimir Bagdasaryan tried to stop them
filming. After the TV station broadcast a report claiming that the Pastor
attacked journalists, Pastor Bagdasaryan was accused of “obstructing the
lawful professional activities of a journalist” under Criminal Code Article
164, Part 1 (see F18News 12 July 2011
).
On 13 July 2011, Gegarkunik Court found Pastor Bagdasaryan guilty and fined
him 200,000 Drams (3,030 Norwegian Kroner, 390 Euros or 550 US Dollars).
His appeals were rejected in December 2011 and February 2012. At the same
time, Pastor Bagdasaryan’s suit to force the police to launch criminal
cases for trespass against the journalists were rejected in court, with the
final appeal heard by Armenia’s Cassation Court in October 2012.
Pastor Bagdasaryan also failed through the courts to get Shant TV to
retract what he regarded as an untrue report, according to the
Yerevan-based Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression.
New Religion Law to parliament “in spring 2014”
Controversy has long raged over a proposed new Religion Law. Most recently,
a draft text – as well as proposed amendments to a range of other laws
relating to religion – were prepared by the Justice Ministry and made
public in July 2011. They were heavily criticised by human rights defenders
and members of some religious communities.
Concerns included: proposed punishments for sharing one’s faith; compulsory
registration for any religious community with more than 25 members, with
punishments for those who do not register; as well as the vague formulation
of many provisions. All of these were thought likely to leave followers of
religious organisations the government – or the powerful Armenian Apostolic
Church – dislikes vulnerable to arbitrary and tight restrictions on their
freedom of religion or belief (see F18News 14 July 2011
).
A joint opinion of the draft new Religion Law and other amendments was
published by the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission and the Organisation
for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Office for Democratic
Institutions and Human Rights on 17 October 2011. While citing
“improvements” since earlier drafts both organisations had strongly
criticised in 2009 and 2010, the 2011 joint opinion highlighted
“fundamental problems which are essential to correct” for the drafts “to be
fully in line with international standards” (see the opinion at
).
In an 8 November 2013 interview with Armine Davtyan for the religions.am
website, Deputy Justice Minister Grigor Muradyan said the new Religion Law
draft was being finalised and would be presented to parliament in spring
2014. He said a “significant proportion” of the Venice Commission’s
recommendations had been incorporated into the draft text.
However, human rights defenders and religious communities note that the
text of the proposed new Religion Law has not yet been made public.
Danielyan of Collaboration for Democracy told Forum 18 he had sent the
Justice Ministry ten pages of suggestions for the new Law in October. He
has not had a response. He said that judging by previous occasions, the
text of the proposed new Law will be made public only when it reaches
parliament.
One of Deputy Minister Muradyan’s assistants at the Justice Ministry told
Forum 18 on 6 December that the proposed new Religion Law is being handled
by Deputy Justice Minister Arman Tatoyan. However, Tatoyan’s assistant told
Forum 18 the same day that he was not in the office.
Bans in current Religion Law “OK”?
Some religious communities want the new Law to introduce even more
distinctions between religious communities, on top of the special status
(and exclusive rights, for example its monopoly on preaching) the Armenian
Apostolic Church already enjoys. “Instead of dividing religious communities
between the Armenian Church and the rest, there should be a gradation,” Fr
Arseni Grigoryants of Yerevan’s Russian Orthodox parish told Forum 18 from
the city on 5 December.
“While the special status of the Armenian Church should be respected, there
should be a second category of religions which have been in Armenia for
centuries.” Asked if he had in mind such communities as Muslims, Catholics,
Molokans, Yezidis and Orthodox, Fr Arseni said yes, but then said that
Yezidis should be classed not as a religion but an ethnic minority (the
faith is followed by most Armenian Kurds).
Asked why members of all faiths should not have the same rights, Fr Arseni
insisted that Armenia’s “cultural traditions” needed to be respected in
law. “I consider it OK that the Religion Law currently bans me from going
out into the street and proclaiming that Orthodoxy is the correct religion.
This is the right of the state.” (END)
More coverage of freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Armenia and
the unrecognised entity of Nagorno-Karabakh is at
.
A personal commentary, by Derek Brett of Conscience and Peace Tax
International, on conscientious objection to military service and
international law in the light of the European Court of Human Rights’ July
2011 Bayatyan judgment is at
.
A compilation of Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE) freedom of religion or belief commitments can be found at
.
A printer-friendly map of Armenia is available at
.
All Forum 18 News Service material may be referred to, quoted from, or
republished in full, if Forum 18 is credited as the
source.
© Forum 18 News Service. All rights reserved. ISSN 1504-2855.
From: A. Papazian
http://www.forum18.org/
http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=1904