(MENAFN- AzerNews)
By Mirsaid Ibrahimzade
It is unworthy even to call an 'army the Armenian armed forces, which represents robbery, mass embezzlement, beatings of servicemen, numerous non-combat losses, arbitrariness and hazing. That is why for Armenian soldiers, military service is associated only with senseless torments.
Residents of the village of Mrgastan in Armenia have held a protest in front of the Defense Ministry to protect a resident of the same village, Garik Hakobyan, who has been serving in the army for 7 months.
Protesters said that Hakobyan was charged for leaving the military unit. They noted that the commander of the military unit drove the soldier to a serious mental state, which became the reason for his desertion.
The soldier's father noted in an interview with reporters that his son had health problems prior to joining the service, and therefore he had to serve under special conditions. During the service, the son's health problems became more severe.
Hakobyan's father came to meet with the Minister of Defense and present the facts; however, speaker of the ministry Artsrun Hovhannisyan was sent to meet with the soldier's father. Hovhannisyan said that at the moment, it is known that the soldier had a dispute with another soldier, during which he was inflicted bodily harm, on the fact of which a criminal case was instituted, and his escape from the military unit followed after these events.
Hakobyan is currently in the military police.
This is one of the many cases of desertion in Armenian military units. Recently, Armenian soldier Araik Ghazaryan, who served at the front line, left the post and left the army. Later he was detained near the Azerbaijani positions. The reason of his actions were similar to the case of Hakobyan: hazing, arbitrariness, intolerable and inhuman attitude towards the military personnel in the military unit where he served.
Hematomas and wounds on his body testified that he was subjected to physical and moral pressure.
Obviously, these actions of Armenian soldiers, which have become quite often these months, are also caused by poor conditions in the army, poor medical care and diseases. Moreover, news about wide-spread tuberculosis in the Armenian military units might worry the soldiers.
Armenian conscripts are especially afraid of serving in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, where in addition to hazing, beating and other kinds of humiliation, one can turn into "cannon fodder" to be used during another Armenian provocation on the front line.
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Mirsaid Ibrahimzade is AzerNews' staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @MirsaidIbrahim1
Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
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