armenianow.com 14.04.2010 Siranoush Gevorgyan
Cooperation for Democracy Center’s research on Religious Tolerance in Armenia was presented today at Ani Plaza Hotel, Yerevan.
Legislating Religion: Amendment to law discourages registering “sects” Readers' comments
The authors of the ‘Religious Tolerance in Armenia’ report see progress in some spheres of religious freedoms and regression in some others.
Stepan Danielyan, Head of the Cooperation for Democracy Center (which carried out the three-year research with the support of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Yerevan Office), says that the main regression in this sphere is considered to be the amendments to the Armenian Law on ‘Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations’.
In March 2009, Armenian lawmakers passed in the first reading the draft law, however it caused a lot of discontent and during its four-day session in February this year the National Assembly postponed its final adoption for 90 days. For religious organizations registered in Armenia it is, in particular, disputable that under the law in the case with Christianity a prerequisite for registering religious organizations is “the belief in Jesus Christ as God and Savior, and the acceptance of the Holy Trinity.” The amendments also criminalize proselytizing, which is synonymous with forcible recruitment to religious organizations.
According to Danielyan, the term ‘proselytizing’ must be replaced with the legal term ‘improper [religious] conversion/re-affiliation’ widely used in international practice.
Representative of the Armenian Evangelical Church, Reverend Dr. Rene Levonian is also dissatisfied with the amendments.
“The Constitution of Armenia says that an Armenian citizen is free to choose and change his/her religion. It also says that an individual can be calm in this freedom, and the bill makes an impression that other churches come after the Apostolic Church,” says Levonian, adding that they are looking for equality in this respect.
The report also mentions displays of intolerance at schools and in the press towards religious minorities and even calls for physical violence against them.
Danielyan sees the improvement of the state of representatives of religious minorities in Armenia’s penitentiaries as progress.
“It is noteworthy that religious minorities meet more tolerance at penitentiaries than in freedom,” says Danielyan.
