USCIRF Annual Report 2005 - Georgia

Georgia's former government under President Eduard Shevardnadze exhibited a slow and inadequate response to three years of vigilante violence against members of some of the country's religious minorities. However, under the new government of President Mikheil Saakashvili, the number of reported incidents of violence against minority religious communities markedly decreased in 2004. Moreover, in January 2005, two of the leaders of this vigilante violence were sentenced to prison for their involvement in the attacks. Georgian officials have also permitted the Jehovah's Witnesses Watchtower Bible Society to operate legally in the country for the first time. Though other religious freedom issues remain unresolved in Georgia, such as that only the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC) has formal legal status, significant improvement in religious freedom conditions in the past year has led the Commission to remove Georgia from its Watch List.

Georgia's 1995 Constitution mandates the separation of church and state, guarantees religious freedom, and forbids "persecution of an individual for his thoughts, beliefs or religion." In practice, however, violations of religious freedom have occurred, especially at the regional level, where local officials have restricted the rights of mainly non-traditional religious minorities, who in past years were subjected to societal violence.

The precipitous drop in the number of violent attacks on religious minorities and the sentencing of the ringleaders of the violence represent improvements for religious freedom in Georgia. Under the Shevardnadze government, minority religious groups in Georgia, including Baptists, Catholics, Hare Krishnas, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Orthodox churches that do not accept the primacy of the GOC Patriarchate, were subjected to more than 100 violent vigilante attacks. Jehovah's Witnesses, as well as members of independent Orthodox churches, were particularly targeted. Local police were implicated in these attacks, as they often refused to intervene to protect the victims. What began in 1999 as a series of isolated attacks in the capital of Tbilisi escalated by 2002 into a nation-wide scourge of widely publicized mob assaults against members of religious minorities.

The main instigators of these attacks were defrocked GOC priest Basil Mkalavishvili and director of the Orthodox "Jvari" Union Paata Bluashvili, the latter of whom was reportedly supported by some in the GOC hierarchy. After years of government delays and inaction, in November 2003, only days after the Shevardnadze government fell, a court in Rustavi sentenced Bluashvili and four associates to suspended prison terms, ranging from two to four years, for their role in spearheading the violence in two attacks against Jehovah's Witnesses.

The other leader of mob violence against religious minorities, Basil Mkalavishvili, a priest who is currently under the jurisdiction of Greek Old Calendarist Bishop Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili, has also been convicted on criminal charges, though only after somewhat drawn-out legal proceedings. Over 100 police stormed Mkalavishvili's church in Tbilisi in March 2004, and he was taken into three-month pre-trial detention in conformity with a June 2003 court order; a later closed court hearing ruled that seven of his followers also be held for three months of pre-trial detention. In response to a public outcry over the way these arrests were conducted, President Saakashvili denied that his government was undermining Orthodoxy and justified Mkalavishvili's detention as a way to "defend" the GOC from "extremist religious groups [which] threaten the Orthodox church." Also in March 2004, the Georgian Orthodox Patriarchate issued a statement that the GOC had in fact defrocked Mkalavishvili in 1996. Mkalavishvili and an associate were sentenced in January 2005; Mkalavishvili received a five-year term and his associate a four-year term. Their lawyers reportedly plan to appeal the sentences.

Despite improvements, some religious freedom concerns remain. Although the primary leaders of the violent attacks against members of religious minorities have been convicted, many of the people accused of participating in this violence – including local police officials – have not been held to account by the Georgian authorities, reportedly due to fears of offending the GOC hierarchy. Moreover, Orthodox communities other than the GOC and some other minority Christian denominations encounter difficulties from local officials and the GOC in building places of worship or displaying their literature in bookstores.

The current absence of a mechanism for religious groups to obtain legal status means that only one religious community in the country, the GOC, enjoys such status as a result of its 2002 concordat with the Georgian government. In September 2003, the Roman Catholic Church failed to gain legal status in Georgia when the Georgian government suddenly cancelled plans to sign an agreement with the Vatican. The leaders of many other religious minority groups also seek recognized legal status, a prerequisite for the community collectively to own property or organize most religious activities. However, the absence of formal legal status generally has not prevented most religious communities from functioning through affiliated nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that are registered with the government as NGOs or as individual members of the community. As of this writing, President Saakashvili is considering a law to grant legal status to religious communities via the civil code.

Other concerns involve the role of the GOC, to which 65 percent of the country's population claim adherence. Article 9 of the Constitution recognizes the "special importance of the GOC in Georgian history." In October 2002, the Georgian government signed an agreement, or concordat, with the GOC, granting the Church some approval authority over state school textbooks, the construction of religious buildings, and the publication of religious literature by other religious groups. In recent years, Assyrian Chaldean Catholics, Lutherans, Muslims, Old Believers, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Roman Catholics have stated that the GOC Patriarchate has often acted to prevent them from acquiring, building, or reclaiming places of worship. The Patriarchate has also reportedly denied permission for Pentecostals, the Salvation Army, and the True Orthodox Church to print some religious literature in Georgia, although Assyrian Chaldean Catholics, Baptists, Roman Catholics, and Yezidis (an ancient religion with a majority of ethnic Kurdish adherents) have not reported difficulties in this regard.

Despite general tolerance toward minority religious communities seen as traditional to Georgia, opinion polls and the Georgian media reflect significant societal intolerance towards Protestants and other religions relatively new to Georgia, seen as a threat to the GOC and national cultural values. Public opinion polls continue to show that a majority of Georgians view minority or new religious groups as detrimental and that violence against and the prohibition of such groups would be acceptable, according to the State Department's 2004 human rights report. Some GOC representatives have argued that foreign Christian missionaries should confine their activities to the country's non-Christian areas. The Georgian media has also reflected intolerant views towards religious minorities.

With regard to Georgia, the Commission recommends that the U.S. government should:

• encourage the Georgian government to continue to investigate and prosecute those individuals, including local officials, who are alleged to have been complicit or engaged in violence against members of religious minority communities;
• encourage the Georgian government to establish a mechanism to enable religious communities to gain legal personality under Georgian law, consistent with international human rights standards;
• direct funding to initiate programs in Georgia for journalists, religious leaders, and members of non-governmental organizations to promote religious tolerance and provide education on international standards on freedom of religion or belief.