Pleading Her Case : Woman Who Says She Was Persecuted in Armenia for Practicing Transcendental Meditation Seeks Asylum, but Some Scoff at Her

In Armenia, she said, she was raped, brutalized and incarcerated for practicing transcendental meditation. She said she was forced out of her country and branded a heretic.

In America, as a refugee hoping for religious asylum, Armine is dismissed as a liar.

The atrocities described by Armine--who said she fears retaliation if her last name is used--ring untrue to some of her fellow expatriates residing in the large Armenian pockets of Los Angeles County.

It didn’t happen, they say. Armenia is a free country. She will say anything to stay here.

But the sunken-eyed Armine insists quietly, plainly that religious persecution in Armenia does happen. And at an asylum hearing today in downtown Los Angeles, Pasadena attorney Louis Gordon will try to ensure that it doesn’t happen to his client again.

“If she goes back to Armenia, she’ll be persecuted,” Gordon said.

Staying here poses still other problems.

Richard H. Dekmejian, an Armenian and a professor of political science at USC, dismissed Armine’s claim of religious persecution as a common ploy by people of newly forming nations who are in pursuit of the American dream.

“I can’t take her seriously,” said Dekmejian, who has published papers critical of Armenia and its politics. “As soon as I heard ‘political asylum,’ I began to wonder. Like so many people around the world [Armenians] want a place in the sun. . . . For me, it is a case of economic opportunity.”

“Armenians are proud of their country and would not be pleased to hear of anything untoward or violent occurring there,” said Barry Fischer, a religious rights lawyer specializing in former Soviet and satellite countries.

Having approved a new constitution only in July 1995, the country is still trying democracy on for size. Armenians recently reelected President Levon Ter-Petrossian, and, according to a 1995 U.S. State Department report, the country “has compiled one of the better human rights records of the former Soviet republics.”

But with the instability of a fledgling economy, many Armenians try to leave, Dekmejian said.

Those who have stayed, have faced inconsistent electrical service, hunger and natural disasters.

After Armenia’s deadly 1988 earthquake, outside religious groups began pouring into the former Communist country.

Rushing in with the wave were practitioners of transcendental meditation. Developed by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Indian form of meditation gained popularity in the West in the 1960s, helped by the Beatles’ experiences with the technique.

“When [transcendental meditation] instructors came to [the city of] Yerevan, it was 1990, and I heard about them, that they were doing miracles,” said Armine in an interview.

The Apostolic Church, the majority religious organization, clamped down on such groups as the practitioners of transcendental meditation, calling them “opportunistic.”

“This [transcendental meditation] movement, they misguide people and bring confusion,” said Archbishop Vatche Hovsepian of the Armenian Apostolic Church’s Western Diocese. “They tamper with the minds and souls of feeble people who are searching for spiritual peace.”

A 1991 law officially prohibits proselytization in Armenia by these outside groups, and according to a 1994 U.S. State Department report, religious organizations that want to get their word out through published materials, meetings and radio broadcasts must be registered with the government.

For registration, religious groups have to prove they are based on recognized holy scriptures, the report also said. Transcendental meditation, which is not considered a religion by most of its devotees, would not qualify for registration or permission to meet.

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The unregistered groups were seen as threatening by some religious leaders. The first Christian nation in the world, Armenia has fought hard to maintain its national faith. And the influx of transcendental meditation practitioners, Hare Krishnas and members of other sects is examined with suspicion, said Garbis Der Yeghiayan, professor of Armenian studies and president of Mashdots College in Glendale.

“There is a tolerance, but not a tolerance if it strays from the faith,” Yeghiayan said. “I know the church is officially anti-cult.”

Such a policy, Hovsepian added, is necessary to maintain the church’s dominance.

“They pretend, like a snake, that they are part of [Christianity], but at every occasion they find ways and means to attack the church,” Hovsepian said. “ As far as [her claims of being] persecuted, it’s baloney.”

Despite the harsh feelings toward such groups, Armine said she felt comforted by transcendental meditation. A self-described Christian who sang in her church choir for six years, Armine said she tried to explain to her critics that she does not consider TM to be a religion, just a form of meditation.

But a small band of uniformed men did not believe her, she says. Vacillating between claims of representing the church and the government, a group of men beat, tortured, threatened and raped people whose religious practices did not correspond to any of the established religions, Armine said.

Amnesty International and the Armenian Embassy in Washington compiled records of organized assaults against fringe religious groups in Armenia.

“There have been a couple of nasty incidents when people who claim to be members of the government break into various shrines that are not [associated with] the Apostolic Church,” said Michael Bagratuni, press secretary for the Armenian Embassy in the U.S. “But eventually it is discovered these people do not have anything to do with the government body.”

Such people allegedly invaded a Jan. 25, 1991, meditation seminar in Armine’s hometown of Yerevan.

The uniformed men started beating two lecture room guards, as “the whole situation escalated from questions to violence,” Armine said. She lowered her gaze as she described how she was taken by car to a jail-like facility where she was imprisoned and sexually abused.

Later, she sought a way out of the country. Through her choir connections she was given the opportunity to sing in a traveling chorus scheduled to play New York’s Carnegie Hall in May 1994. She eventually raised the money to move to Los Angeles, where a friend from Armenia lived.

Armine’s visa had already expired when she appealed for asylum at an Anaheim court in October 1994. Her friend, who had only limited knowledge of English, wrote a poorly translated petition for asylum and Armine was immediately referred to an immigration judge for deportation. Seeking legal counsel, Armine finally met attorney Gordon.

“It is hard,” Armine sighed. “I miss not only my daughter and my sister, but I miss everything in Armenia I knew.” Ironically, Armine said she has been coping by practicing the same techniques that she says caused her problems in Armenia. She said that she has not ventured out into the Armenian community and that she mostly keeps to herself, fearful of resentment.