Mher Yenokyan  

(Hetq's correspondent in prison)                                                                          

 Now I am trying to approach every line I write with more responsibility. It obliges you, when you are entrusted with the task of writing for the press. I'm not a journalist by profession, though I would like to read some guidelines on journalism for beginners. 

In a few days, I will take the last three exams and I'll move to the second course. Being a 38-year-old man, I get emotional like a 17-year-old student every time the lecturers come to the prison and I take my oral exams. 

During the New Year's holidays, when I again began my three-hour study sessions in the computer room, the door opened and in came Father Grigor, who visits the lifers every Thursday. He was accompanied by three other clergymen and four prison employees who work in the solitary cell division, including the woman from the social psychology department. Bread, salt, and water were placed in the center of the roundish table in the middle of the room. A "home blessing" ceremony for the prison employees was going to take place. Prior to this, Father Grigor had visited the prisoners, entered every prison cell and wished everyone a Merry Christmas. 

For me, faith and religion are separate. Religion is a type of spiritual politics, which is based on people's "spiritual instinct," while faith is a pure, simple feeling, a powerful positive energy or charge. I've spoken with Father Grigor twice on this endless topic. Sparing readers' patience, I won't recount my ideas on the separation of religion and faith.

Seeing the preparation for the ceremony, I shut off my computer, preparing to return to my cell. One of the people in charge of the lifers division said: "Mher, don't go, we're practically a family. You also study in this office for three hours each day." An interesting situation: standing around the table together were prison staff, lifers, and clergymen. We all prayed together, and when we recited the Our Father, Father Grigor blessed the bread, the salt, and the water, conducting the entire blessing ceremony. After that all of us together shared the bread and salt. 

It's true, prisoners and prison employees are equal before God. I would like for none of us to forget that. Prison becomes a unique home also for the prison guards, since they spend most of their day there. And as the prisoners say, in the morning they are willfully imprisoned, and late at night they are released… to return to prison again the next day.

Standing around the table, when we were praying together and sharing salt and bread, there were pleasant emotions. But prison will never become my home, since for 18 consecutive years, my soul, mind, and heart are outside of these walls, in my real home, with my family. An 18-year tenacious struggle for justice [in Armenian, the word "justice" contains the word "trial" in it. The author is making a play on words] — and not fairness ["fairness" in Armenian is "justice" without the word "trial"]. The feeling of fairness lives inside of us, while justice is carried out on behalf of society for the sake of the state.

Basically, no justice and no mercy… even in 2001, when Armenia celebrated the 1700th anniversary of adopting Christianity as a state religion, no attention was paid to prisoners who were serving the maximum prison sentence. Also ignored was the fact that these people went through actual hell before 2001, that in 20th century civilization, people are kept like animals — hungry, abused, and in terror. Lifers, in any case, awaited with great faith and hope that in 2001, His Holiness and the president of Armenia would show mercy also for prisoners. Alas…

They say hope dies last. Faith in people can also die when there is no love. And let Faith and Love in God keep the HUMANITY in humans.