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On July 10, 2016, Hovhannes Grigoryan from Vanadzor town, Lori marz (region), consulted Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor on the protection of the rights of his son, Melik Grigoryan, serviceman at military unit 58831 of the RA Defense Ministry. Serviceman Melik Grigoryan has a number of health problems and was declared fit for service without undergoing any proper medical examination and conscripted on July 26, 2015.

Starting from the beginning of his service, the serviceman has not been able to get fully involved in his service since the state of his health deteriorates day by day. He suffers several diseases; he has frequent acute pains in his heart, pain in his legs, pressure fluctuations and therefore takes several remedies. In particular, he suffers neurotic, stress-related and somatoform disorders /Article 7(C) of the RA MoD Order № 410/, brain and spinal cord vascular diseases /Article 11C/, endocrine system and metabolic diseases /Article 20C/, cardiac muscle, heart sac (pericardium), coronary vessels, valve apparatus and aorta diseases and malformations /Article 26D/, neuro-circulatory asthenia (hypertensive, hypotensive, cardiac and other forms or mixed forms) /Article 28B/, foot deformation (Article 43C). Also, along with the Articles above of the RA MoD Order № 410, prescribing military service with limitations, his service record card also has a mention of Article 26(C) stipulating that servicemen are not fit in peacetime, are fit for military service with limitations, in war time. This means that the serviceman is in military service illegally.

According to the serviceman’s father, the competent authorities had taken no real steps to resolve the serviceman’s health issues and, if impossible, to exempt him from the military service. Instead, by transferring him from medical unit to military hospital regularly and performing a non-complex medical examination, they again declare him fit for military service with limitations, which does not comply with his current state.

We again state that in terms of a number of conscripts, the RA Ministry of Defense and its competent divisions fail to comply with the requirements of the legislation by conscripting to the RA Armed Forces persons with grave health problems and keeping them in service without resolving their health problems. Moreover, they spare no efforts to ignore the alerts on health status and fail to take into account the opinions on medical commissions on the health situation and possible complications if young people suffer several grave diseases.