August 2004

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MINORITIES IN ARMENIA SCEPTICAL ABOUT NEW DRAFT LAW AIMING TO PROTECT THEM (www.iwpr.net)

August 2004 – According to a brief report from the Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR), Armenia’s minority communities have shown no interest in a proposed new law intended to protect their rights, and some are even strongly against it. In fact, the Armenian government has already attempted to pass a similar law before, but it was also rejected by the communities concerned. After that, in January this year, the government established a new Department for National Minorities and Religion, which started drafting the new bill, and as soon as the text is completed it will be sent for review at the Council of Europe and then submitted to Parliament. If eventually passed, it will be Armenia’s only legal act to regulate minority rights, as the constitution does not contain any reference to such rights and the laws on education and language barely mention them (see Armenia’s first report on the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages; link below). The object of the future law is to regulate the rights of minorities in the areas of language, education and religious practice and it intends to be in line with the Council of Europe’s resolution on the implementation of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities by Armenia, although this resolution is not binding but has just the status of a recommendation. Furthermore, according to a member of the team drafting the law, it “may set a positive example for other countries of the region”, since none of them has any such law. Although in the last Soviet census of 1989 minorities in Armenia accounted for 6.7 % of the population, they now represent 2.2 %, a fall which is mainly due to emigration and to the flight of Azerbaijani population. There are more than 20 ethnic groups in Armenia, among which mainly Assyrians, Kurds, Yezidis (Kurdish-speaking but non-muslim), Greeks, Jews and Russians, and they are very sceptical about the advantages of the bill; they mostly prefer to stay as they are and not to be positively discriminated as they believe this will lead to persecution and discrimination.