RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IGNORED IN GEORGIAN POLITICS
Daan van der Schriek: 10/30/03

All the troubles plaguing Georgia - breakaway republics, political hostility, and economic dependence on Russia - may obscure the extent of religious intolerance in the country. Georgia has tolerated hundreds of assaults on Jehovah’s Witnesses, Muslims and those outside Georgian Orthodox Christianity. One outspoken supporter of such tactics, parliamentarian Guram Sharadze, has joined pro-presidential party For A New Georgia ahead of the November 2 parliamentary elections. Sharadze’s zeal may politicize the tolerance issue in some voters’ minds.

Less than three weeks before elections, Sharadze charged Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze of "high treason" in connection with a complex issue about repatriation. But tellingly, Sharadze said the speaker had "deprived...Georgians...of their faith." Such remarks are not surprising from Sharadze, who has publicly burned Jehovah’s Witnesses’ literature and tolerated the beating of people of minority faiths.

Human Rights Watch, the international advocacy group, testified on religious intolerance at a Organization for Security and Cooperation meeting in September 2002. At that meeting, the group dismissed government claims that a national law on religion would have to precede efforts to stop religious persecution.

Such a law would be hard to enforce, in part because attacks on minority religions have been hard to record. Since 1999, more than 700 attacks have been carried out against non-Orthodox believers in Georgia. According to Levan Ramishvili, director of the Tbilisi-based Liberty Institute, various officials, police officers, politicians and members of the "fundamentalist wing" of the Georgian Orthodox Church either condone or effectively support religious oppression.

Attacks on Jehovah’s Witnesses, such as the raid by Orthodox Christians of a religious congress in May, have gone largely unanswered in Georgian society. Zurab Zhvania, a former ally of President Eduard Shevardnadze who now leads the United Democrats, accused a political rival in June of tolerating "religious extremism" and fanning ethnic strife. But while it appears relatively easy to score political points by declaring oneself in favor of ethnic peace, it seems almost impossible to rouse police or politicians to assert minority religious rights.

Human Rights Watch, in its testimony, noted the passive nature of police response to religious attacks. "Police failed to intervene when they could have stopped attacks that were underway," the testimony says. " Where police have responded to victim complaints, they often fail to collect evidence, question suspects, or detain perpetrators, even when the perpetrators have been identified. On numerous occasions, police displayed open hostility to the victims."

But the most prominent figure in Georgia’s religious-freedom debate is also its most polarizing. Father Basili Mkalavishvili, an excommunicated priest who has oppressed Jehovah’s Witnesses, retains the support of some parliamentarians. Though currently there is a warrant for his arrenst, he is still at large, and loudly protected by Sharadze. On October 16, Sharadze stood with more than two dozen members of Parliament, including members of the Revival and Centrist Democrat parties, to call for rescinding a warrant for the priest’s arrest.

Politician’s reluctance to condemn violence reflects calculation, says Ramishvili, and proceeds from unclear religious direction. The Orthodox Church, including its Georgian Patriarchate, has always opposed violence. Its proponents believe in converting other Christians through dialogue.

Yet the church asserts its brand of Christianity is the only legitimate one in the state. The government was on the verge of signing a deal with the Vatican to protect Catholics’ religious freedom on September 19, when coordinated protests by the church forced Shevardnadze to scrap the agreement.

Shevardnadze, in defending the decision, said that parliament would "soon" pass a law on religious tolerance that would encompass the agreement’s terms. This is the same appeal that Human Rights Watch criticized in 2002. Though church patriarch Ilia II has called religious violence "totally alien to our way of life and traditions and "artificially created," the church has notably declined to seek restoration of ties with Rome.

Religious diversity can be found in the breakaway region of Ajaria. Most Georgians in the region are Sunni Muslims. Elsewhere in Georgia, says political scientist Paata Zakareishvili, those who are not Georgian Orthodox increasingly face isolation if not outright abuse. Anyone espousing a minority religion, he says, is "a guest" who must "abide by the rules." The insertion of Sharadze into a pro-government bloc will do little to promote religious freedom in the next Georgian legislature.

Editor’s Note: Daan van der Schreik has reported from throughout the Caucasus and Central Asia.

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Posted October 30, 2003 © Eurasianet
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