The draft law of Armenia "On National Minorities" is discussed in  parliament

ArmInfo. On the initiative of the  Standing Committee of the National Assembly on State and Legal Issues  and Protection of Human Rights on April 6, the draft of the RA Law  "On National Minorities", proposed by the Government of Armenia, was  discussed.

As the press service of the Parliament reports, at the invitation of  the vice-chairman of the commission Rustam Mahmudyan, about 70  representatives of the Yezidi community of Armenia visited the  parliament.  Mahmudyan, emphasizing the importance of the bill, noted  that the Yezidi community is not so active in the public discussions  of the document. He called for a detailed introduction to the  legislative initiative, to submit proposals.

Vigen Kocharyan, Deputy Minister of Justice of Armenia, informed that  the development of the project is conditioned by the constitutional  amendments of 2015. In his opinion, there is a need to have a single  law.  The project introduces the concepts of "national minority" and  "representative of the national minority", fixes their rights and  guarantees for the implementation of the latter in various spheres,  determines the provisions for preserving the identity of national  minorities, addressing educational and other issues.  Kocharian  informed that it is planned to create a Chamber of National  Minorities, which will operate under the Public Council. In his  assessment, the project does not foresee any drastic changes in the  sphere. The meeting also discussed a number of problems that are of  concern to the Yezidi community, which relate to the optimization of  rural schools, school books, the state of roads, etc. Mahmudyan  presented his compatriots with his annual activities in parliament.  Representatives of the Yezidi community expressed their gratitude for  the adoption of the statement of the National Assembly of the  Republic of Armenia on January 16, 2018 "Conviction of the genocide  of the Yezidi people committed by terror groups in the territories  under their control in the Republic of Iraq in 2014".