A high-ranking clergyman of the Armenian Apostolic Church voiced support for government efforts to combat domestic violence as they were angrily denounced by socially conservative groups on Monday.
The Gyumri-based Archbishop Mikael Ajapahian spoke during a heated public discussion in Yerevan on a relevant law drafted by the Armenian Ministry of Justice.
The bill would introduce criminal and administrative liability for specific cases defined as domestic violence. It would also obligate the state to protect female victims by providing them with special shelters or banning their violent spouses from approaching them and even their children.
The ministry invited non-governmental organizations supporting and opposing tougher government action against domestic violence to publicly present their arguments. The meeting descended into chaos as the two sides bitterly argued over the wisdom of the proposed legislation.
Representatives of several mostly obscure groups vehemently objecting to the government initiative stood by their claims that the West and the European Union in particular are forcing Armenia to enact the bill in order to weaken Armenian families. One of them, Hayk Nahapetian, questioned official statistics showing that more than 50 Armenian women have been beaten to death and killed otherwise by their husbands or other relatives in the last five years. The scale of the problem is grossly exaggerated by pro-Western civic groups, he claimed.
Ajapahian disagreed. “Even if there is some foreign intervention or a desire to please some foreign forces … why should we see a non-existent conspiracy? I personally don’t see any conspiracy,” he said.
“If I have a normal family, if I am a loving father, a loving husband or a loving son, if I love and am loved, which article of this law on prevention of domestic violence could harm me?” the archbishop went on. “So do not create imaginary monsters, do not fight against imaginary monsters, and be tolerant towards each other.”
Ajapahian, who leads a church diocese encompassing Armenia’s northwestern Shirak province, at the same time urged the Ministry of Justice to “take into account and allay” concerns expressed by critics.
Justice Minister Davit Harutiunian, also present at the discussion, was at pains to disprove their claim that the bill paves the way for forcible separations of children from their allegedly violent parents. “You haven’t even read the law,” he told a woman who continued to claim the opposite.
Unable to convince their opponents, a visibly irritated Harutiunian and some civic activists campaigning domestic violence walked of the meeting hall moments later. The minister made clear that he remains determined to send the bill, strongly backed by women’s rights groups, to the Armenian parliament for approval.
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