State of the World's Minorities 2006 - Armenia

Armenia began its attempts to improve the situation of minorities after 1998 when Robert Kocharyan became president. Before, many members of minorities had been leaving the country mainly due to its poor economic performance. This, together with international pressure to become party to international treaties, provided a growing sense of moral justification for granting minorities protection and cultural development. Nevertheless, the Kocharyan administration was slow to adopt improvements and the development of legislative mechanisms for the protection of the rights of national minorities was rudimentary up to 2004. The Constitution affords certain language and cultural rights to minorities, and the 2004 Law on Administrative Governance allows representatives of minorities, elected to local self-government, the right to present official letters in their first language accompanied by translation in Armenian. The Law on Radio and TV Broadcasting gives minorities the right to transmit information in minority languages and forbids any propaganda against minorities. Since the end of 2003, efforts have also been under way to draft a law on national minorities.

The Yezidi minority of Armenia suffers discrimination at the hands of the police and local authorities. The Yezidis speak a Kurdish dialect and practise a religion derived from Zoroastrianism, Islam and animism. They have been subject to unfair adjudication of land, water and grazing rights, bullying of their conscripts in the army as well as children in schools, and poor police response to serious crimes committed against their members. Members of the Yezidi community have tried to address their grievances with the presidential adviser on national minorities, but no government responses have been forthcoming.