10 Europe and Central Asia Summary of Amnesty International’s Concerns in the Region, January – June 2007 Jehovah’s Witnesses in Yerevan also reported to AI that a youth organization by the name of ‘One Nation’ had been sticking up posters in Yerevan allegedly describing Jehovah’s Witnesses as ‘dangerous’. Representatives of the organization believed that this alleged activity, combined with a lack of successful prosecutions, contributed to a climate of impunity for physical attacks on Jehovah’s Witnesses. An AI delegate expressed concern regarding the allegations of the dissemination of hate speech directed against Jehovah’s Witnesses to the Head of Division for Human Rights and Humanitarian Issues in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in March; it was agreed that these allegations would be investigated Human rights activists expressed concern at the adoption of a new law in February conferring a number of new rights on the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC). The law followed an amendment introduced into the Constitution after the referendum of November 2005 affirming the AAC’s unique role in the spiritual life of the Armenian people. Armenian human rights activists expressed concern that the new law entrenched discrimination against organizations and individuals of other religious beliefs. The law confers upon the Armenian Apostolic Church a range of rights and benefits not available to other religious organizations and groups, including financial support from the state budget, the right to implement educational programmes in state education institutions, the right to have its official reports published in the media without changes, and recognition of weddings and divorces conducted by the AAC. On 13 February the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) published its Second Report on Armenia, which had been adopted on 30 June 2006. The report noted progress in the establishment of a Department of National Minorities and Religious Affairs entrusted with promoting minority languages and cultures, and in criminalizing hate crimes. However, the report also observed that despite progress with legislation on national Amnesty International minorities, no comprehensive body of civil and administrative provisions against discrimination has been adopted. According to the report current mechanisms do not allow for national minorities to access wider civil and political life in Armenia. The report also criticized the Law on Alternative Service as failing to provide a viable framework for an alternative civilian service for conscientious objectors, the majority of whom are Jehovah’s Witnesses. Conscientious objectors still imprisoned (update to AI Index: EUR 01/001/2007) Armenia continued to imprison conscientious objectors to military service, in defiance of its obligations and commitments as a member state of the Council of Europe to respect the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and despite the introduction of an alternative service to military service in national legislation in July 2004. Conscientious objectors continued to complain that in both its legislative framework and implementation, Armenia’s alternative service was under the supervision and control of the military and so did not constitute a real civilian alternative to military service. Jehovah’s Witnesses informed Amnesty International that as of 1 June 2007 there were 75 Jehovah’s Witnesses imprisoned in Armenia (70 tried and convicted, five charged and in pre-trial detention). Numbers of conscientious objectors imprisoned have increased due to lengthened sentences and greater reluctance to release them on parole. Death in custody of Levon Gulyan On 12 May Levon Gulyan, a restaurantowner in Yerevan, died in suspicious circumstances while in police custody. Levon Gulyan was detained for questioning on 10 May as a possible witness to an incident outside his restaurant earlier that evening, in which one man was shot dead. He was questioned until late in the evening AI Index: EUR 01/010/2007