Robert Revasyan

Lawyer, Armenian Helsinki Committee

The draft law on "Freedom of conscience and religious organizations" drafted by the RA Ministry of Justice, to put it mildly, raise concerns. The draft law proposes the following definition of proselytism: act of religious influence on citizens with or without religious views during which material or social encouragement is proposed or provided to the person or his/her relatives or the reliance is used, hatred towards other religious organizations, their creed and activities is formed, expression of offences is applied towards other persons or religion, the person is prosecuted double or more, including persons under 14 -year age without consent  of his/her parents or guardian.    

It is not very clear, what kind of reliance and social encouragement are meant. What does it mean "the person is prosecuted double or more", it is not very clear what is meant by the wording "pursue". This definition endangers freedom of activity of members of different religious organizations and may lead to misinterpretation and abuse. There is a concern that the definition of proselytism maybe used for persecution of the members of different religious organizations.

The most serious concern raises the amendments to the RA Criminal Code which define the proselytism as a crime. According to the mentioned amendments, it foresees 2 months of detention for proselytism, if the same action was committed by previous agreement of a group of persons or by the organized group, it may be punished with 2 years of imprisonment. The third clause of the amendment provides up to 4 years of imprisonment if the proselytism was implemented on the ground of national, racial or religious hatred or fanaticism.  

The European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) in the case of "Kokkinakis versus Greece" on proselytism recognized violation of the Article 9 of the European Convention. Kokkinakis was convicted by the court of Greece for proselytizing. The reason was that Mr. Kokkinakis made an attempt to interfere with the beliefs of person who had different religious views with the aim to change those views.  The ECHR stated that the sentence of the court of Greece interfered with Kokkinakis' freedom of religion.

The RA draft law also provides that the religious group with 25 or more followers should be officially registered. In another clause, it is mentioned that the supervision of the implementation of law by the religious organizations is conducted by the RA Ministry of Justice.

Mandatory official registration is contradicting the idea of freedom of association. However, the fact that supervision over the religious organizations should be conducted by the RA Ministry of Justice proves that   the state wants to take under the control even the activities of the smallest religious groups.  Apparently, the State is making a direct attempt to interfere with the activities of the religious organizations.

Along with these changes, there are amendments drafted to the RA Law on Administrative Offences Code which provide responsibility for religious advocacy among minors, avoiding registering a religious group, persecution or provision of benefits of material or social nature for the purpose of converting to another religion, violation of the requirements of the Law by religious organizations.

The draft law on making amendment to the RA Law on the Relations between Republic of Armenia and the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church is also noticeable. It proposes to supplement the law with new article. It says that the State does not   interferes the implementation of the exclusive missions of the Armenian Apostolic Church which includes: to preach and disseminate its doctrine on the territory of Republic of Armenia, build new churches, promote spiritual education of the Armenian people, support moral improvement of the Armenian people in the educational institutions by the order defined by law, conduct charity and guardianship activities.    

That is, the law clearly defines that the mentioned missions are exclusively under the monopoly of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Hence, other religious organization do not have a right to preach, build churches, implement charity missions, support spiritual improvement of the Armenian people etc. Thus, the State demonstrates discriminatory approach to other religious organization by giving such monopoly to the Apostolic Church. It undermines the idea of secular state; and the charity and guardianship or support to the spiritual improvement of the Armenian people are becoming monopolised.

Apparently by proposing such amendments to the laws, Armenia is making an attempt to take under the strict control and restrict the activities of the religious organizations thus depriving of the right to freedom of preaching and disseminating own religion.

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Source www.hra.am