Our struggle is for Artsakh residents` right - lawyer 

ArmInfo. Our fight is not against the Armenian authorities, but for the rights of the people of Artsakh, for the government to make the right decisions. This was  stated by lawyer David Hovhannisyan during a general rally of the  people of Artsakh on Freedom Square.

"We are not fighting against anyone, but for the rights of each of  you, for a dignified life in your homeland, and so that a resident of  Artsakh is not called a refugee in Armenia, and an Armenian here is a  citizen of the Republic of Armenia," the human rights activist said.

He called it unfair that the people of Artsakh have refugee status in  Armenia. "I officially declare that no one has any moral, legal or  political right to call the people of Artsakh refugees and to say  that a resident of Artsakh is a person who does not have citizenship  and must apply for it. This is an approach that can only split the  Armenian people," the human rights activist noted.

At the same time, he spoke about the difficulties that Artsakh  residents face upon reaching retirement age.  Hovhannisyan said that  the authorized bodies of Armenia require a certificate of social  payment or an archival document on this in order to process a  pension. But no one takes into account that the body that could  provide such a document has been abolished, and the archive, for  known reasons, could not be transported to Armenia during the forced  expulsion from Artsakh. In this regard, Hovhannisyan demanded that  the RA government amend the relevant law on forcibly displaced  citizens, which would allow the use of a work record book as a basis  for calculating/processing a pension.

The lawyer also recalled that none of the 150 thousand Artsakh  residents, according to the program announced by the Armenian  authorities, have been provided with housing. "If after the genocide  of 1915 we had a strong state, then our compatriots from Western  Armenia would not have sought refuge in Russia, France, the USA, etc.  And today we would have a strong state with a population of 6 million  people.

History repeated itself 100 years later. We have over 100 thousand  forced migrants, of which 20 thousand migrated to foreign countries.  The Armenian authorities should have had so much intelligence, will  and desire to take measures and not allow the people of Artsakh to  leave," Hovhannisyan noted.