{"id":871,"date":"2012-01-17T20:09:15","date_gmt":"2012-01-17T20:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/news\/2012\/01\/17\/nagorno-karabakh-jw-conscientious-objector-jailed-for-30-months\/"},"modified":"2012-01-17T20:09:15","modified_gmt":"2012-01-17T20:09:15","slug":"nagorno-karabakh-jw-conscientious-objector-jailed-for-30-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/nagorno-karabakh-jw-conscientious-objector-jailed-for-30-months\/","title":{"rendered":"Nagorno-Karabakh: JW Conscientious Objector Jailed For 30 Months"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">Jehovah\u2019s Witness Karen Harutyunyan was sentenced on 30 December 2011 to 30 months\u2019 imprisonment for refusing compulsory call-up to military service in Nagorno-Karabakh, an internationally unrecognised entity in the south Caucasus. Even before his trial, he had been transferred to the prison in the hilltop town of Shusha near Nagorno-Karabakh\u2019s capital Stepanakert, where he will serve his sentence, Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service. The entity\u2019s latest prisoner of conscience, who refused military service because of his religious beliefs, is intending to appeal against the sentence. Harutyunyan\u2019s imprisonment comes as the Council of Religions \u2013 a body under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister made up of about 20 officials and members of registered religious organisations \u2013 is preparing revisions to the Religion Law which could make the restrictive Law even harsher.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">Nagorno-Karabakh\u2019s Human Rights Ombudsperson Yuri Hairapetyan insisted Harutyunyan broke the law, and questioned why he rejected military service. \u201cHow can someone refuse military service when Nagorno-Karabakh is still in a military situation?\u201d Hairapetyan told Forum 18 from Stepanakert on 17 January. \u201cHow can this be justified? Maybe he\u2019s not even a Jehovah\u2019s Witness.\u201d<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">Ombudsperson Hairapetyan also stated that Harutyunyan had not appealed to him for help. \u201cI can only defend those who appeal to me. I respond to every appeal.\u201d<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">&#8211;<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">www.eurasiareview<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jehovah\u2019s Witness Karen Harutyunyan was sentenced on 30 December 2011 to 30 months\u2019 imprisonment for refusing compulsory call-up to military service in Nagorno-Karabakh, an internationally unrecognised entity in the south Caucasus. Even before his trial,&hellip;<\/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-871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871","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=871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}