Religious Tolerance in Vanadzor

“The issue of freedom of conscience still remains a problem and it is the first indicator for human rights situation”-mentioned Arthur Sakunts, the coordinator of HCA Vanadzor, during the discussion on “Religious Tolerance in Vanadzor” held at Helsinki Citizen’s Assembly-Vanadzor office on March 21, 2009. It was organized within the framework of the International day for the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination during the UNITED action week against racism.

The representatives of religious and non-governmental organizations participated in the discussion, the aim of which was to discuss the public attitude towards religious organizations and Armenian draft law on “Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations.” The law was written in order to solve the current problems in the religious field but in fact, it is itself a problem and shows discrimination towards non-apostolic (Armenian Church is called “Armenian Apostolic Church”) religious organizations and the authors of the law wanted to underline only the importance of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
  The participants discussed the provisions of the draft law, which are anti constitutional and restrict freedom of conscience. “It is likely that discriminative approach can start towards freedom of conscience based on one’s religion or beliefs and this phenomenon is our problem”,- was mentioned during the meeting. They spoke about many religious terms like “proselytism” existing in the law that are first of all, translated wrong and this can cause mass persecution towards religious organizations.
  The participants said that the draft law should be discussed publicly before its adoption, and so far it hasn’t been done.
  The authors of the law believe that religious diversity maybe harmful for national identity, but according to the representatives of religious organizations, national identity has nothing to do with religious identity.
  Rafik Grigoryan, the pastor of the Church of Christians of the Evangelical Faith presented the situation of religious organizations mentioning that mass media spread information about harmful impact of religious organizations for the Armenian nation and he underlined the existence of intolerant attitude towards religious diversity, which, basically, is one of the conditions for civil society.
  The participants of the discussion suggested making a serious expert analysis and applying to the President, Prime Minister and the National Assembly of Armenia hoping that in that case the initiation of adopting the law on “Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations” will be stopped.