Interview with the
Chairman of the “Cooperation for Democracy center” Stepan Danielyan

Mr. Danielyan, recently a group of NGOs stated that “Human Rights
Protection Strategy of the Republic of Armenia” does not reflect the real
situation with human rights in Armenia and it should be revised. In your
opinion, to what extent the Strategy ensures the freedom of conscience and
belief? 

The Human Rights Protection Strategy
has been developed by the National Security Council (NSC). Some organizations
submitted written suggestions to the NSC. However, for some reasons, the NSC
did not respond to the submissions and these suggestions were not incorporated
in the Strategy. Such approach shows their working style. Though, in their
strategy it is stated that they should actively cooperate with the civil
society.

The document has been adopted, the
President has signed it but it is not a dogma, amendments are possible and we
will go on with suggestions.

Concerning the section on freedom of
conscience and belief, definitions used there are vague; some of the notions
used are not defined either by the law or by any other official and
international documents. Particularly, it concerns the use of such notions as “soul
hunting», «destructive sect”, etc.

For instance, the notion “proper soul
hunting” is used in the Strategy which is absurd. There is an international
notion “proselytism”, change of religion, which is one of the expressions of
the freedom of belief: everyone can change her/his religion according to the
own will. However, there is a notion of non-proper change of religion. If
somebody is forced to change her/his religion under duress or deception, it is
a crime which should be punished.

From this perspective, the Law on
Freedom of conscience and religion adopted the notion of “soul hunting” which
is not a legal term and its meaning is unclear. The notion was translated into
English as “proselytism”, thus the experts from the Venice Commission suggested
differentiating proper and improper proselytism. After the translation into
Armenian the notions proper and improper soul hunting were applied.  Wrong terminology and incorrect translation
led to the absurd notions which are used in the Strategy.

It is important to have clear
definitions. Wrong definitions lead to arbitrary application and
interpretation.

Any notion in the human rights realm
should be clearly defined and explained to ensure its correct and proper
application in practice.

Does your
organization make steps to clarify definitions included in the Strategy?

In the spring of the last year while
presenting the Draft Strategy Artur Baghdasaryan spoke about the need to
develop a national strategy against the destructive sects, a number of
religious organizations registered in Armenia, submitted letters to Artur
Baghdasaryan with the request to clarify whether they belong to the destructive
sects or not and whether they are to be combated, too. The answer was that the
sects undermine traditions and the system of national peculiarities and they
should be combated. 

In the next letter it was requested
to specify the laws containing such definitions and where the list of national
peculiarities may be found. The answer was that the Strategy is on the stage of
elaboration and there are no definitions yet. If the NSC President, who
prepares the Strategic document on National Security and is planning to monitor
the implementation, has no idea about the definitions he spoke out, how this
person is going to protect human rights in Armenia and ensure the
implementation of this Strategy.

Last year the
research “Problems of religious education in schools of Armenia” was published.
To resume the research, what is the situation concerning the freedom of
conscience in the school system?

The Human Rights Strategy contains a
very important provision. It states that the religious education in schools
should be provided in compliance with the Toledo guiding principles.  This is a document developed by the OSCE
experts and contains recommendations to State Parties on the teaching about
religions in schools of their countries. It is a key document giving a good
tool to ensure freedom of conscience in schools.

As a matter of fact, we have Minister
of Education who calls to combat destructive sects implying that all the
religious organizations are among them. School teachers and directors take it
as a recommendation and start a struggle with pupils who belong to other
religious groups.

To avoid ungrounded statements, we
have conducted around hundred interviews, among others the Head of the Center
of Christian Education was also interviewed who is responsible for training and
selection of teachers who teach the subject “The History of the Armenian Church”
in schools. We have also interviewed the staff of education departments, school
directors, teachers, parents and children in the regions. We have talked to
religious leaders who supervise schools and have certain responsibilities which
are not defined by law because in the Armenian law “On Education” it is
stressed out that the education in Armenia is secular. 

What kind of
violations has been recorded?

There are cases when teachers blame pupils
in the classroom; there are cases when afterwards children beat their
classmates, mock them because their parents are followers of other religious
beliefs. All this is included in the research report.

We have also presented the
recommendations to relevant public officials on the actions directed at the improvement
of the situation.

You have suggested
to make the subject “The History of the Armenian school” optional, to rename it
into “The history of religions” or revise the content of the textbook. Did you
get a feedback from the authorized public bodies?

Our primary goal was to present the
situation. There is no feedback from the Ministry of Education and Science or
NSC. The situation is still the same. Moreover, there are grounds to state that
the situation is worsening. For that reason, during the discussion of the
Strategy we have made a recommendation to the Prime Minister and ministers to consider
the staff of the NSC as a target group and organize training sessions for them
to raise their awareness and professionalism in the field of human rights.

Curriculum,
teaching methodology or the textbook is the problem?

There are problems in all mentioned
directions. For instance, the textbook for the 10^th grade has
nothing to do with the history. The religion and nation are merged. I would
allow myself to state that it is totally raving.

The teaching methodology also raises
concerns because kids are forced to conduct religious ceremonies; they are
questioned about their religious belonging. The subject is contradictive in
principal. 

Is it a common problem
for all schools?

We can state that it was noted
everywhere. I would not say that teachers realize what they do. Particularly in
regions teachers mainly are very kind people. There is no personal problem with
them. They are just confident that they are doing a patriotic job when persecuting
or persuading to change the religion.

In practice there are cases in kinder
gardens when during the performances kids pray and sing religious songs. The
cases are wide spread. This should not be perceived as a violation of the
rights of religious minorities. There are people who are atheists or agnostics.
In my opinion, majority of population of Armenia are agnostics but this is
another topic for discussion. The rights of these people are violated as well.

What is the reason?
Maybe there is a need for legislative changes?  

There are laws in force, for example
the education in Armenia is secular. However, they do not work. There is a merger
between Prime Minister, Minister of Education, Ararat eparchy and Catholicos.
We observe that this merge leads to such consequences. The situation is
regulated as a result of personal relations between people in power, but not
according to the law. There are registered cases when church invades the realm
of the science. During the defense of the thesis they give positive or negative
feedback. This mainly concerns the
fields of history, sociology, and pedagogy. There are many cases when the
negative feedback from church led to the situation when the thesis was not
defended or in the case of positive feedback a bad thesis is defended. Here we
expect developments.

To sum up, which
are the needs in the field of freedom of conscience and belief?

Firstly, the laws should work.
Secondly, mentality should be changed.

Interview by Haykuhi Barseghyan