YEREVAN, JUNE 24, NOYAN TAPAN - ARMENIANS TODAY. On June 23, the Yerkir Union spread a statement on new manifestations of policy of violation of Javakhk Armenians' rights. Below is the statement completely: "The consistent policy of violation of Javakhk Armenians' rights carried out by the Georgian authorities has got new, more rude and evident manifestations. Thus, Javakhk Armenian teachers, who were leaving for Armenia within the framework of the retraining program, were called to the Georgian Security Service and interrogated, the rights of Javakhk Armenian activist Vahagn Chakhalian continue to be rudely violated. He was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment by the Georgian court with the charge of organizing rallies and meetings on April 7 2009, on June 19 of the current year RA National Assembly deputy Shirak Torosian, who is known for his public speeches on problems of Javakhk Armenians, was prohibited to enter Georgia without any explanation. The Georgian authorities being concerned that protest to their policy of violation of Javakhk Armenians' rights gradually increases in Armenia, Diaspora, and among the international community, on the eve of Georgian President M. Saakashvili's visit to Armenia, by increasing anti-Armenian persecutions try to achieve the following main purposes: to once more show their unyielding position in the issue of Javakhk Armenians' rights, to move the Javakhk problem to the sphere of Armenian-Georgian interstate relations and by exerting economic pressure upon the Armenian authorities to force them to make new concessions. The Yerkir Union calls the Georgian authorities for understanding that persecutions only deepen the current discontent by further increasing the realization in Armenia and Diaspora that the struggle for Javakhk Armenians' legal rights is an all-Armenian struggle. Therefore, Georgian authorities' efforts to move the problem of Javakhk Armenians to the sphere of interstate relations and to give a "solution" to it by using economic levers of pressure on that plane are doomed to failure. There is no alternative to stopping the persecutions, dialogue with public-political circles representing the Armenians of Javakhk and giving a real solution to language, educational, religious, and cultural problems faced by the Armenians of Javakhk. The Armenian authorities, Armenian and Diasporan structures, international organizations are obliged to undertake active steps to stop the crisis gradually deepening in Javakhk and to give a solution to Javakhk Armenians' problems in correspondence with international norms of human rights and minorities rights.

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