Experts: discrimination law unnecessary in Armenia
26.03.2013,
21:00
Karine Hakobyan, a member of Areg think tank and a former deputy labor minister, is convinced that Armenia needs no discrimination law today.
YEREVAN, March 26. /ARKA/. Karine Hakobyan, a member of Areg think tank and a former deputy labor minister, is convinced that Armenia needs no discrimination law today.
Speaking Tuesday during the bill discussion, she said that the country has some laws on disabled people, gender policy etc., which prohibit discrimination.
“It means there is no need to adopt a new law,” she said.
In November 2012, Karen Andreasyan, a human rights activist, came up with an initiative to work out a bill to protect victims of discrimination, such as women, old people disabled people and minorities.
Hakobyan said that the bill is nothing more than part of the West’s policy aimed at undermining national traditions.
“They couldn’t work out a project applying only to discrimination of sexual minorities,” she said. “That is why they cooked this sauce and included this provision in it.”
Vardan Astsatryan, head of the government staff division on religion and ethnic minorities, said he wondered why discrimination of representatives of sexual minorities stood along with discrimination of women, ethnic minorities and disabled people.
“Not only rights of certain categories of people, but also requirements to them should be mentioned here,” he said. “But there are no demands to them in this document… So-called tolerance toward sexual minorities may give them ground to insult representatives of sexual majority and followers of Armenian Apostolic Church.”
Astsatryan said passage of this bill would strike hard at Armenia’s national and state interests and jeopardize the national security strategy.
It is known, he said, that many bills had been rejected all over the world for various reasons. He expressed hope that this discrimination law will join this row.
Theologian Samvel Navoyan, a member of Areg think tank, on his side, said that adoption of such a law would bring Armenia back to paganism, which glorified many sexual deviations. -0-
