Proposals to Improve Social Rights of Residents in Verishen and Akner Presented to Government: Ombudsman

Proposals to enhance the social rights of residents in Verishen and Akner villages have been submitted to the Government, reported the Human Rights Defender of Armenia, Arman Tatoyan, on his Facebook page.

“I have presented proposals to the Government regarding the improvement of social rights for residents of Verishen and Akner villages. First, I recommended that the Government include Verishen and Akner in the list of border communities. The written justifications considered the outcomes of our discussions on May 14 with residents of Verishen and Akner and the community leader of the enlarged community of Goris in Syunik Province.

This issue has become particularly urgent, considering the illegal incursion of Azerbaijani armed forces into the area of Lake Sevan, toward the direction of Verishen and Akner villages, as well as the violations of the rights of residents in border areas and the periodic provocations that threaten them.

In addition to this, the residents of Akner raised an important issue regarding the fact that about 150 residents of the village do not benefit from the agricultural land use privileges granted to them solely because they are not recognized as residents of a border village, even though these lands have been within the administrative territory of the border-recognized Karahunj village since 2012. This pertains to pasturelands and hayfields.

It turns out that in order to be recognized as beneficiaries of social support programs allocated for border communities, one must be a resident of the given locality. However, there are social privileges that are granted based on conducting activities within the administrative boundaries of a particular locality, aimed at promoting those activities (land cultivation, organizing production in the sphere of economic activities, conducting trade through commercial entities, and so on) and tax exemptions.

Therefore, this issue has also been submitted to the Government of Armenia, proposing that residents of Akner who have been benefiting from the pasturelands and hayfields in the administrative territory of the border-recognized Karahunj since 2012 be granted privileges until Akner is included in the list of border communities. These issues have also been separately presented to the Human Rights Defender by the leader of the enlarged community of Goris.