sentenced to one year in jail for refusing to swear the military oath on Biblical grounds, BosNewsLife learned Tuesday September 6.
Human rights watchdog Forum 18, which has close contacts in the area, said "military leaders" in South Caucasus republic had "successfully appealed to the courts for Gagik Mirzoyan" to overturn a "suspended" one year jail sentence.
However "the court told Mirzoyan that if he declared then and there he would swear the oath it would free him and send him back to his unit," Forum 18 said.
"Gagik responded that he couldn’t do so as the Bible doesn’t allow it," a fellow Baptist was quoted as saying by the Forum 18 News Service (F18News).
"He was sentenced and police took him away immediately." Two Jehovah’s Witnesses have also been sentenced to prison in Nagorno-Karabakh this year for refusing compulsory military service because of their religious convictions, Forum 18 added.
"BAD NEWS"
"This is bad news," Albert Voskanyan, director of the Centre for Civilian Initiatives, told F18News Nagorno=Karabakh’s capital Stepanakert. "Mirzoyan is likely to be brought here to Stepanakert in the next few days and then, it seems, to the prison in Shushi."
Already held in Shushi prison for refusing military service on grounds of religious conscience is Jehovah’s Witness Areg Hovhanesyan, sentenced on 16 February to four years’ imprisonment, F18News added.
Baptists say Mirzoyan is prepared to conduct an alternative service. "He’s ready to serve even in a dangerous position, such as in a frontline medical unit, as long as it is without weapons and without swearing the oath," one unidentified Baptist was quoted as saying. "He believes this would be a witness for others to his faith," the Baptist told F18News.
"RELIGIOUS CONSCIENCE"
Mirzoyan, a Karabakh native and member of a local congregation of the Council of Churches Baptists, was called up last December but announced immediately that he was not able to serve with weapons or swear the military oath "on grounds of religious conscience."
Human rights groups claim that during his conscription he was beaten up in two different military units and served 10 days in military prison. Nagorno-Karabakh has compulsory military service for all young men, with no alternative service provision.
The latest developments came was expected to add to tensions in Nagorno-Karabakh, which declared independence from the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan in 1991.
Following its declaration of independence, up to 30,000 were killed in heavy fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the disputed enclave, and over one million people fled their homes, according to estimates. A ceasefire was signed in 1994, but peace talks are slow and refugees remain stranded in several areas. (With BosNewsLife Research and reports from Nagorno-Karabakh).
