Epress.am News from Armenia
Amendments to the RA Law on Military Service allowing Armenian citizens studying abroad to defer their military service on a bail of 8.5 million AMD (about $20,655 USD) cannot be discussed with a straight face, since it's obvious to everyone that the amendment was made to exempt the children of oligarchs and the ruling authorities from compulsory military service, said principal of the Mkhitar Sebastatsi educational complex, former RA Minister of Education and Science Ashot Bleyan during discussion of the law.
"I say eliminate deferment connected to studying. Eliminate discrimination. An 18-year-old man is subject to military service — either he serves or is he is evading military service. In general, I believe that if there's struggle for justice in Armenia, it has to start from here. It's another matter that there has to be contract military service. I am in favor of compulsory military service lasting one year — that's not the issue. I'm saying that that channel cannot be created in the law. Separate military service from the right to education," he said.
According to the former education minister, the vast majority of PhD candidates are male, but it's practically impossible to determine what percentage of them became PhD candidates to avoid military service.
"That we're able to comfortably discuss [this] proves that we haven’t overcome […] parochial thinking. We read the law through the eyes of my child, my brother's child; we don't look at it as a civil society where discrimination in any form has to be excluded. Justice has to begin from there where the ruling authorities' children have to go and serve," he said.
The RA Ministry of Education and Science proposed the amendment to post bail for deferment, explaining that male applicants, getting scholarships and deferment to study abroad, were avoiding returning to Armenia and serving in the Armenia. The Ministry did not provide any statistics on how many students didn't return to Armenia after studying abroad. The decision was adopted at the Jan. 23 cabinet meeting.
Video in Armenian only.