Union of Councils for Soviet Jews: Georgian Extremists Attack Jehovah's Witnesses

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Georgian Extremists Attack Jehovah's Witnesses

(May 9, 2001)

Reuters
May 3, 2001

Orthodox extremists armed with nail-studded clubs raided a meeting of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Georgian capital this week and beat worshippers, a spokesman for the faith said on Wednesday.

Human rights groups said the incident was part of a campaign of violence against religious minorities in overwhelmingly Orthodox Georgia. They say police have turned a blind eye.

Around 40 attackers, some masked, burst into the meeting in a private house in a Tbilisi suburb on Monday and set upon the 80-strong group of Jehovah's Witnesses, said Christian Presber.

"They broke through the front door and started pulling people out by their hair," Presber told Reuters. "They ransacked the house, broke all the windows and took all our literature and burned it on a bonfire outside."

The Jehovah's Witnesses -- who say they have suffered dozens of similar raids -- released photographs showing victims with welts and bruises on their faces, arms and chests. Tbilisi police confirmed the attack took place but said they did not intervene and declined to give further details.

"These attacks have been going on for more than a year," said Levan Ramishvili, director of the Tbilisi-based Institute of Liberty, an independent civil rights group. "It's basically a witch-hunt but police and security forces do nothing about it."

Living standards in the ex-Soviet republic have plunged since independence 10 years ago and evangelical churches touting eternal salvation have found fertile ground in poor communities.

Like its counterpart in Russia, Georgia's Orthodox church is unhappy about inroads made by other faiths. Orthodox patriarch Ilya II told parishioners to stay away from Roman Catholic masses in Tbilisi when Pope John Paul visited in November 1999.

Defrocked Orthodox priest Basil Mkalavishvili has led a vociferous campaign to ban other faiths. In March, Mkalavishvili and his supporters held up a truck carrying blankets and Baptist literature and burnt all the books in full view of police, newspapers reported.