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‘Armenia is a country that pursues freedom of religion, freedom of belief and conscience’, says PM

armenpress.am05/24th/2019, 1:24

‘Armenia is a country that pursues freedom of religion, freedom of belief and conscience’, says PM

Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan attended the opening of a conference on freedom of religion or belief in Armenia, Georgia and around the world, the PM’s Office told Armenpress.

Armenian Human Rights Defender Arman Tatoyan, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Netherlands to Armenia and Georgia Johannes Douma, UN Resident Coordinator for Armenia Shombi Sharp, Eurasia Partnership Foundation (EPF) Director General Gevorg Ter-Gabrielyan and others participated in the event.

Addressing the conference participants, Prime Minister Pashinyan said: “It should be noted that freedom of religion is one of the most important freedoms because I am at least convinced that a person believing in God first of all believes in himself. Consequently, freedom of religion, freedom to believe in God is first of all the freedom of an individual to believe in himself.

Of course, there are such people who believe in themselves, on the contrary, by not believing in God. But in the same way, the human being becomes a key player in the process of self-confidence. This is very important. I mean that freedom of religion is human being’s freedom.

Freedom of religion is one of the most important freedoms, and it relates directly to all those values that are universally recognized by mankind - whether democracy, transparency, human rights, freedoms, justice or the like. In this regard, I am pleased to note that the Republic of Armenia is a country that is pursuing freedom of religion, freedom of belief and conscience. And especially, the New Armenia is fully committed to these values. The fact that the national minorities feel comfortable in Armenia is a vivid evidence of what I just said. I mean that providing guarantees for the preservation of national, religious minorities’ identity in Armenia is a matter of principled approach for the Government. They should feel free to preserve, develop and be proud of their ethnic identity.

Generally speaking, religion and inter-religious relations are perhaps the most important topic because it has long been accepted that the differences between religion and religious perceptions are usually separated from each other. But we consider this situation quite strange also because most of the popular or major religions originate from the same God. And this makes us say that the dividing lines do not emanate from people who deal with religions but from their interpretation, because our faith and conviction is that religion is actually supposed to unite peoples; religion is indeed for peace and harmony; religion is in fact a way to happiness.

And if it is true that the dividing lines were drawn by virtue of religious doctrines, that is, by giving different interpretations, then dividing lines can be removed in the ...

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