{"id":802,"date":"2011-07-02T12:10:15","date_gmt":"2011-07-02T12:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/news\/2011\/07\/02\/another-facility-owner-pressured-to-cancel-witnesses-convention-in-armenia\/"},"modified":"2011-07-02T12:10:15","modified_gmt":"2011-07-02T12:10:15","slug":"another-facility-owner-pressured-to-cancel-witnesses-convention-in-armenia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/another-facility-owner-pressured-to-cancel-witnesses-convention-in-armenia\/","title":{"rendered":"Another facility owner pressured to cancel Witnesses\u2019 convention in Armenia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses unable to enter conventions facility.<\/div>\n
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PARAKAR, Armenia\u2014The owner of a facility in the city of Parakar was pressured by government officials and priests of the Armenian Apostolic Church into cancelling a three-day religious convention of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses scheduled for July 1-3, 2011. Approximately 800 Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses who planned to attend have been deprived of their right to assemble for worship.<\/div>\n
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Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses peacefully held a convention at this same facility on June 24-26, 2011. However, on the last day, several priests of the Armenian Apostolic Church attempted to disrupt the convention. Over the next few days, the facility owner was relentlessly pressured by government officials, including parliamentarians and police officers, to cancel this week\u2019s convention. After being informed that the order came from \u201cvery high up,\u201d the owner stated that he would comply and unilaterally cancelled the legally binding contract.<\/div>\n

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This is the second religious convention of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses to be cancelled within a three-week period. On June 10, just a few hours before the start of their \u201cLet God\u2019s Kingdom Come!\u201d District Convention at a rented auditorium in Vanadzor, Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses were forced to leave the rented facility because the owner refused to honor the contract, effectively cancelling the Witnesses\u2019 convention. During the summer of 2010, three conventions of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses held at private rented facilities were cancelled by the owners following similar pressure.<\/div>\n
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On October 8, 2010, and again on June 27, 2011, Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in Armenia wrote to President Serzh Sargsyan, respectfully requesting his assistance so that the Witnesses can exercise their Constitutional right to freely assemble and hold peaceful religious conventions in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights.<\/div>\n
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In a similar case dealing with the disruption of a religious convention of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Armenia\u2019s neighboring country, Georgia, for failing \u201cin their duty to take the necessary measures to enable [Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses] to exercise freely their rights to freedom of religion.\u201d\u2014Case of 97 members of the Gldani congregation of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses and 4 others v. Georgia, 71156\/01, 3 May 2007.<\/div>\n
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Media Contacts:<\/div>\n
Armenia: Tigran Harutyunyan, tel. +374 10 27 45 44<\/div>\n
Belgium: European Association of Jehovah\u2019s Christian Witnesses, tel. +32 2 782 0015<\/div>\n
Britain: European Association of Jehovah\u2019s Christian Witnesses, tel. +44 20 8906 2211<\/div>\n
United States: David Semonian, Office of Public Information, tel. +1 718 560 5600<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses unable to enter conventions facility. PARAKAR, Armenia\u2014The owner of a facility in the city of Parakar was pressured by government officials and priests of the Armenian Apostolic Church into cancelling a three-day religious…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}