13 November 2003

GEORGIA: Should violent Orthodox group be banned?

Opinions on whether Jvari, a self-styled Georgian Orthodox organisation that has been terrorising religious minorities, should be banned are divided. Human rights activist Levan Ramishvili told Forum 18 News Service that "More important is for its members to be prosecuted.". Members of minority faiths – speaking on condition of anonymity – and western diplomats told Forum 18 that Jvari should have been banned when it began its reign of terror against religious minorities. But diplomats privately expressed little hope to Forum 18 that the authorities would take steps to prosecute those responsible for hundreds of violent attacks against Jehovah's Witnesses and Protestants. Jvari's leader, Paata Bluashvili, told Forum 18 "We're just defending our faith. The Jehovah's Witnesses and all these other groups are criminal sects – they should be banned."

5 November 2003

GEORGIA: After four years of attacks, a suspended sentence is given

Religious minorities in Georgia have welcomed the first criminal punishment given in four years of unpunished violence by self-styled Orthodox vigilantes, Forum 18 News Service has been told, even though the jail sentence given is a suspended sentence. However the sentenced attacker has told Forum 18 that he is innocent, that Jehovah's Witnesses violently assaulted him contrary to their past record, and that he will lodge court appeals by the end of this week. The sentenced attacker has a long record of leading raids on private flats and beating up individual believers, often working together with similarly violent Tbilisi-based Old Calendarist priest Basili Mkalavishvili, who is still free.

25 September 2003

GEORGIA: Will non-Orthodox faiths ever get legal status?

The lack of legal status for non-Orthodox religious communities has led to difficulties carrying out their activities, especially over building and opening new places of worship, minority religious leaders have complained to Forum 18 News Service. "Of course this is not right," declared Pentecostal Bishop Oleg Khubashvili. "There is no religion law so there is no legal status. We want legal recognition as a Church." True Orthodox priest Fr Gela Aroshvili believes the Orthodox Patriarchate will never allow other religious communities equal rights. "When the Patriarchate got its concordat it became a monopolist and was able to obstruct everyone else," he told Forum 18. But Metropolitan Daniil (Datuashvili) of the Patriarchate rejected suggestions that his Church opposes legal status for other faiths. "On the contrary, the Orthodox Church wants all of them to get legal status as religious organisations."

25 September 2003

GEORGIA: Catholics fail to break Orthodox monopoly

The Catholic Church failed in its bid to become the second religious community to gain legal status when the government abruptly cancelled plans to sign an agreement with the Vatican on 19 September. Catholic officials stressed that the Church needs the agreement. "For the past decade they kept saying a law on religion would be adopted which would grant such recognition, but it never happened," a Catholic official told Forum 18 News Service from Tbilisi. "That's the reason for the agreement." The government's change of mind followed complaints from the Orthodox patriarch and street protests. "These demonstrations were organised by the Orthodox Church, which stirred up the students by telling them the agreement was part of a plot by European and Masonic agents," Orthodox priest Fr Basile Kobakhidze told Forum 18.

14 July 2003

GEORGIA: Racist vigilantes again blockade Pentecostal church

Racist language was again used yesterday (13 July) when self-appointed vigilantes blockaded a home in the capital Tbilisi to prevent a Russian-language Pentecostal church from meeting for the sixth Sunday in a row. "You Russians clear off back to Russia and do whatever you like there!" and "Sectarians, clear off out of Georgia!", Pastor Nikolai Kalutsky – a Georgian citizen - quoted the demonstrators as telling him. But Georgia's ombudsman has failed to support the church. "Services in the house were noisy – they sing loud hymns. This is a residential area. That's why the neighbours are complaining," Nana Devdariani told Forum 18 News Service from Tbilisi on 14 July.

9 July 2003

OSCE COMMITMENTS: OSCE MEETING ON FREEDOM OF RELIGION - A REGIONAL SURVEY

Before the OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on Freedom of Religion or Belief on 17-18 July 2003, Forum 18 News Service http://www.forum18.org/ surveys some of the more serious abuses of religious freedom that persist in some countries of the 55-member OSCE. Despite their binding OSCE commitments to religious freedom, in some OSCE member states believers are still fined, imprisoned for the peaceful exercise of their faith, religious services are broken up, places of worship confiscated and even destroyed, religious literature censored and religious communities denied registration.

3 July 2003

GEORGIA: Baptists deny they burnt down own church

Baptist leader Malkhaz Songulashvili has described as "silly" a suggestion to Forum 18 News Service by district governor Timur Berianidze that Baptists in the village of Akhalsopeli burnt down their own church. Berianidze described as "a lie" the widely-held view that the local Orthodox priest Bessarion Zurabashvili was involved. Songulashvili said Fr Bessarion keeps visiting families and "stirs them up against our people". Villagers have threatened the Baptists that they will never be allowed to rebuild their church and if they do so, they warn that it will be burnt down again. Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams and Pope John Paul II are among those who have condemned ongoing religious violence in Georgia.

23 June 2003

GEORGIA: Police chief bans Pentecostal church

Local police chief Temur Anjaparidze says he will not allow Pentecostal pastor Nikolai Kalutsky to use his home in Tbilisi as a church. "It's not fair on the neighbours," he told Forum 18 News Service on 23 June. "The neighbours won't allow this. What can I do?" His comments came the day after the Pentecostal church was again blockaded by neighbours and self-appointed Orthodox vigilantes, who also made racist remarks to the ethnic Russian pastor. Fr David Isakadze, priest in the nearby village of Dighomi suspected of being behind the repeated mob blockades, denied any involvement. "I have no role in this whatsoever," he told Forum 18, despite appearing to be well-informed about the protests.

16 June 2003

GEORGIA: Did Orthodox arsonists destroy Baptist church?

In the wake of threats by the local Orthodox priest to burn down the Baptist church in Akhalsopeli in eastern Georgia, the building was wrecked by fire in the early hours of 15 June. "The walls survived the fire, but the interior has been reduced to ashes," Emil Adelkhanov of the Centre for Peace, Democracy and Development told Forum 18 News Service. "We're certain our priests were not involved," Metropolitan Daniil Datuashvili of the Orthodox Patriarchate told Forum 18. "Such attacks were always carried out in the past by schismatics who broke away from the Patriarchate." Adelkhanov ridiculed such claims. "There have constantly been incidents of violence when Patriarchate priests were involved."

16 June 2003

GEORGIA: "We'll be back," mob warns Pentecostals

Demonstrators reportedly organised by Orthodox priest Fr David blockaded a Pentecostal church in the capital Tbilisi for seven hours on 15 June, preventing believers from attending a special Pentecost service. "We will do everything to prevent you from meeting. We won't stop till there's blood," Vera Kalutskaya, wife of the pastor, quoted members of the mob as telling the Pentecostals. She told Forum 18 News Service they had threatened to kill her husband, Pastor Nikolai Kalutsky. "You have incorrect information. They were not Orthodox, they were just local residents," local police chief Timur Anjaparidze told Forum 18.

9 June 2003

GEORGIA: Protest against "anti-sect" school textbook

Human rights activists and religious minority leaders have complained about a textbook that warns school children about the "dangers" of religious "sects". "Security: Dangerous Situations and Civil Defence", issued with Education Ministry approval last year, is used for children of 15 and 16 in the compulsory subject Security. Emil Adelkhanov of the Tbilisi-based Caucasian Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development told Forum 18 News Service that he regards the book as a further symptom of "religious hysteria" in Georgia. Baptists and Lutherans have also expressed concern. "I think the textbook encourages religious violence," Malkhaz Songulashvili of the Baptist Union told Forum 18. "If the state is serious about religious freedom it has to withdraw the book immediately and apologise for issuing it."

5 June 2003

GEORGIA: Violent priest to challenge temporary detention order

Violent Old Calendarist priest Basil Mkalavishvili is to challenge a 4 June district court order that he be held in "preventive detention" for three months. His appeal is to be heard on 9 June at Tbilisi city court. The Baptists have been told that the closed preliminary hearing was connected with the case against Mkalavishvili for raiding a Baptist warehouse and burning copies of the Bible in February 2002. "I don't think they're going to arrest him," Malkhaz Songulashvili, head of the Baptist Union, told Forum 18 News Service. Levan Ramishvili of the Liberty Institute was equally sceptical. "If they had wanted to arrest him it would not have been difficult." Mkalavishvili – who has gone into hiding – has expressed defiance in a television interview, cursing his enemies and warning that Georgia will be struck by earthquakes if he is detained.

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