Epress.am News from Armenia
Whitchurch Alport FC and its supporters have started a petition to prevent 23-year-old player Hovik Nersesyan’s forcible return to Armenia.
“Hovik Nersesyan is a genuine and honest young man and a part of our community. His life is in danger if he is not granted asylum and returned to Armenia where he may face imprisonment, ill treatment and forced to 2 years armed service. He does not need social support, money or accommodation….. just a chance to build a life without danger,” the petition text says.
Shropshire Star reports that the Armenian government has ordered Nersesyan to return to Armenia for military service. The club has hired a lawyer to represent the 23-year-old in court on February 19; the petition, in turn, has already gotten more than 1,000 signatures.
“In my country they are looking for me. If I go back now they will put me in prison and then after the imprisonment, I have to go to the army and my life will be in danger,” Nersesyan told Shropshire Star. The footballer came to the UK two years ago, after being exempted from military service as a sportsman representing Armenia in a foreign country. “[After the 2016 April escalation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict] they don’t care if you are a footballer. The government is taking everyone and sending them to fight. I read in the Azerbaijan news that Armenian soldiers are dying every day,” Nersesyan added.
Ruben Hayrapetyan, the president of the Football Federation of Armenia (FFA), has commented on the situation, saying that “this is a blatant case of desertion.”
“Nersesyan played for Pyunik FC until 2015 and was included in the national youth football team. Before the 2015 winter draft, the Football Federation submitted the list of the youth team players to the Defense Ministry; the footballers were to carry out their military service in a sports company, which is deployed in Yerevan – nowhere near the conflict borders.
“Nersesyan, however, refused to serve in the sports company, and in autumn 2015, he was granted a deferment by a Defense Ministry medical commission due to a supposed medical condition. He left for England in 2016, and neither the Football Federation nor Pyunik FC has had any news from him every since.
“Now this young man is asking for asylum from England, which, I’m convinced, he is doing solely because he wants to flee Armenia. This is a blatant case of desertion, and has nothing to do with the reasons he has given,” Hayrapetyan said in a statement published on the official website of the FFA.