Armenia to Foot the Bill for Convicting Jehovah’s Witnesses 

The European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) has published its ruling over “Aghayan and others v. Armenia” by which it obliges Armenia to pay 242,000 EUR to 22 Jehovah’s witnesses convicted in 2012 for refusing to serve in the military and conduct other civic service.

The case opened based on the claim submitted by Sergey Aghayan and other 21 claimants convicted in 2012 for evading military service. The Court established that the rights of the claimants were violated during the criminal trial in relation to Article 9 of the Human Rights Convention (Freedom of Thought, Belief and Religion).

ECHR has obliged Armenia to pay 10.000 EUR of moral compensation and 1000 EUR (instead of the requested 2000) of court and defense-related expense compensation to each of the claimants within 3 months.