ARMENIA: Conscientious objector taken

Armen Grigoryan, a religious conscientious objector who is considering to become a Jehovah's Witness, has been taken to an Armenian military unit in Nagorno-Karabakh, Forum 18 News Service reported on 6 January 2005. Armen Grigoryan, the 18-year-old son of a Jehovah's Witness family, was summoned to the military recruitment office in Yerevan on 21 June 2004. Within 24 hours and against his will he has been taken out of Armenia and transferred to a military unit across the border in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is formally part of Azerbaijan, but practically controlled by an Armenian government of Nagorno-Karabakh. On refusing to swear the military oath and sing the national anthem at the military base in the Martuni region, Armen Grigoryan was beaten by his superiors. With the help of his father, Grigoryan wrote to several government departments and human rights organisation, but this seems to have worsened his situation.
Lieutenant-General Vladik Khachatryan ordered that legal proceedings be instituted against Armen Grigoryan. At the instigation of the rosecutor's assistant, he was stripped and forced to stand in his underwear in front of about 1,800 soldiers in the unit to tell them why he refused to do military service. He was offerend alternative service within the military, but refused, and demands to be provided with an alternative civilian service.
In the presence of the unit commander, Armen Grigoryan again wrote an application for alternative civilian service to Armenia's ombudsperson, Larisa Alaverdyan. After a month Armen Grigoryan was briefly hospitalised and managed to escape from his military unit in Karabakh on 25 August 2004. He is now being hunted. From his hiding place, Armen Grigoryan has again written to the Armenian authorities that he is willing to serve in a genuinely civilian alternative service.

War Resisters' International calls for the immediate release of Armen Grigoryan from military service, and an end to legal proceedings against Armen Grigoryan.
War Resisters' International calls for protest letters to the Armenian authorities, or Armenian embassies abroad. A protest email can be sent at http://wri-irg.org/co/alerts/20050118a.html.

War Resisters' International calls for the immediate release of all imprisoned conscientious objectors.

Andreas Speck
War Resisters' International

Addresses:
Mr Vartan Oskanian
Minister for Foreign Affairs
Government House #2
Republic Square
Yerevan 375010
Republic of Armenia
tel +374-1-544041
fax +374-1-562543
email info@armeniaforeignministry.com

Robert Kocharian
resident of the Republic of Armenia
Baghramyan st. 24
Yerevan 375077
fax +374-1-521581, 521796, 151152
www.president.am

A list of Armenian embassies abroad can be found at http://www.armeniaforeignministry.com/htms/embassiesList.html

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