Friday, June 3 2022 16:21

ArmInfo. A September Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe resolution on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict cited the "catastrophic impact" of the  long-running conflict "on the cultural heritage and property of the  region, for which both Armenia and Azerbaijan have a responsibility."  This is stated in the US State Department annual Report on  International Religious Freedom: Armenia.

The report notes, "The constitution states that everyone has freedom  of thought, conscience, and religion.  It recognizes the Armenian  Apostolic Church (AAC) as the national church and preserver of  national identity but also establishes separation of religious  organizations and the state.  The law prohibits, but does not define,  proselytism, which may be interpreted as forced conversion."

According to the report, "The trial continued of a prominent Baha'i  lawyer, Edward Manasyan, charged in 2017 with organizing illegal  immigration; Baha'i community members said they believed the charges  were brought because of his religion.  The country's highest court of  appeal, the Court of Cassation, rejected a Baha'i appeal alleging the  government had illegally wiretapped the group and used the  information gathered to prosecute Manasyan.  Yezidi human rights  activist Sashik Sultanyan was indicted on charges of "inciting  hatred" based on off-the-record comments he made to a journalist  criticizing the treatment of Yezidis in the country that were  surreptitiously recorded and posted online by the journalist.   Sultanyan's prosecution drew strong criticism from international  human rights groups. 

 In February, the government announced it planned to remove a course  on the history of the Armenian Church from the mandatory school  curriculum as part of a broader educational reform, generating  significant public debate.  A September Parliamentary Assembly of the  Council of Europe resolution on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict cited  the "catastrophic impact" of the long-running conflict "on the  cultural heritage and property of the region, for which both Armenia  and Azerbaijan have a responsibility." Representatives of some  religious minorities, such as the Seventh-day Adventists and several  evangelical groups, as well as the Jehovah's Witnesses, reported that  public attitudes towards them had generally improved compared with  the previous year and reported little or no negative content in the  media during the year.  Anonymous social media users, however,  continued to target the evangelical Word of Life Church with online  hate speech and harassment," the report reads.

" Some members of the Jewish community and civil society members  reported that antisemitism, including negative speech by members of  the public and vandalism, increased after Azerbaijan used  Israeli-supplied weapons during intensive fighting in the  Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the fall of 2020.  During June  parliamentary elections, an opposition figure who had never held  elected office criticized the Word of Life Church and Jehovah's  Witnesses, referring to them as "sects," a term these religious  groups did not use to describe themselves and which was generally  perceived as pejorative.  Human rights groups stated that verbal  targeting of religious minorities, both on and offline, decreased  during the year, as the individuals who had previously targeted  religious groups largely pivoted to discussing the aftermath of fall  2020 fighting and COVID-19.  On February 12, the Holocaust and  Genocide Memorial was vandalized for the third time since the 2020  fighting.  Representatives of minority religious groups stated that  societal and family pressure remained a major deterrent for ethnic  Armenians to practice a religion other than the Armenian Apostolic  faith.  The U.S. Ambassador and other embassy officials continued to  promote religious tolerance, respect for religious minorities, and  interfaith dialogue during meetings with government officials.   Embassy representatives raised with government officials and members  of parliament the cases of criminal prosecution of Yezidi and Baha'i  leaders and monitored their trials.  The Ambassador and other embassy  officials regularly consulted with religious groups, including the  AAC, evangelical Christians and other Protestants, Jehovah's  Witnesses, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Church of  Jesus Christ), Yezidis, the Jewish community, Apostolic Assyrians,  Pentecostals, and Baha'is, and individual members of the Muslim  community, to discuss the state of religious freedom in the country.   Embassy officials engaged government officials and civil society  representatives to discuss the impact of the Nagorno-Karabakh  conflict on religious group