On May 20, 1999, Georgia adopted the European Convention for the
Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and thus committed
itself to upholding the convention's articles. Article 10 states:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall
include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information
and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of
frontiers." Did this right stop the opposers of the Witnesses from
continuing their efforts to ban religious literature? By no means!
On June 21, 1999, the Office of the Patriarch of All Georgia, in a
letter to the head of customs inspection, insisted that "the
distribution of foreign religious literature should be banned." In
addition, Giorgi Andriadze, an official spokesman of the Georgian
Orthodox Church, declared that Jehovah's Witnesses were dangerous and
should be banned. These denunciations did not fall on deaf ears.
Religious fanatics, who had burned literature of Jehovah's Witnesses
in the past, now felt confident that they could attack the Witnesses
themselves and get away with it. On Sunday, October 17, 1999, they
struck again.
Mob Rule Goes Unpunished
JULY 11, 2001 - David Salaridze was hit on the head with a club and
beaten on the back and ribs when he was attacked while attending a
meeting of Jehovah's Witnesses. That Sunday some 120 of Jehovah's
Witnesses in Tbilisimen, women, and children attended a religious
gathering. Suddenly, defrocked Orthodox priest Vasili Mkalavishvili
and 200 of his followers burst into the meeting place.% They encircled
the Witnesses and struck them again and again with their wooden clubs
and iron crosses. Four attackers grabbed one Witness by his arms and
neck. They yanked his head down and began to shave his head while the
mob gloated over his humiliation. When the frenzied mob finally left,
16 Witnesses required hospital treatment. One man had three broken
ribs. Another Witness, a 40-year-old woman named Phati, later
recalled: "They began to shout at me, and one of them hit me with all
his might. He hit my face, my eyes. I tried to hide my face with my
hands. Blood was running down my fingers." When this brute was
finished with Phati, she could not see with her left eye. Today,
Phati's eye remains damaged as a result of the attack.
This outrageous attack, shown on television, prompted President Eduard
Shevardnadze to speak up. The following day, he stated: "I condemn
this occurrence and believe that the law-enforcement agencies should
institute a criminal case." Since the video footage identified the mob
leader and the other attackers, convicting them would be a rather
simple matter. Yet, two years later, none of the attackers have been
convicted.
"All acts of harassment and physical violence will be prosecuted and
the perpetrators will be held accountable before the law."
President of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze, November 2, 2000
Emboldened by Impunity
Not surprisingly, the inaction of the authorities secular and clerical
sent the attackers the message that violence would be tolerated.
Emboldened by this impunity, they stepped up their rampage of robbing,
beating, and kicking Jehovah's Witnesses in private homes, on the
streets, and in places of worship. Between October 1999 and August
2001, there were over 80 documented attacks on Jehovah's Witnesses,
affecting more than 1,000 victims. Even so, on February 9, 2001, a
city prosecutor in Tbilisi told reporters that the investigation of
Vasili Mkalavishvili "is still under way." Regrettably, at the time of
this writing, Georgia's authorities still allow the opposers of
Jehovah's Witnesses to carry out their hate crimes.
What is the role of the police? News reports and video footage reveal
that the police not only allowed the attacks against Jehovah's
Witnesses but also participated in them! For instance, on September 8,
2000, in the city of Zugdidi, a group of club-wielding police officers
broke up a peaceful convention of 700 of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Eyewitnesses reported that masked police officers "carved a path of
destruction," beating more than 50 Witnesses. "It was heartbreaking,"
the owner of the convention site said, recalling the look of terror on
the children's faces as blank antitank shells were fired over their
heads. Police stormed the site and burned it down. Yet, till this very
day, they go unpunished.
Because this sordid incident is no exception (see the box "Police
Participation"), on May 7, 2001, the United Nations Committee Against
Torture rightly expressed its concern about "continuing acts of
torture and other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment in Georgia committed by the law enforcement personnel; the
continuing failure to provide in every instance prompt, impartial and
full investigations into the numerous allegations of torture."^
Indeed, not one of the more than 400 complaints that Jehovah's
Witnesses have filed with the police has led to a conviction of the
known perpetrators! Georgia's Public Defender, or Ombudsman, who is
elected by parliament, therefore commented: "Human rights are violated
by the very people who are obliged, by virtue of their jobs, to
protect those rights. For them, human rights are little more than a
piece of paper."
POLICE PARTICIPATION
On September 16, 2000, police from the city of Marneuli set up
roadblocks to prevent 19 buses carrying Jehovah's Witnesses from
reaching a convention location. At one roadblock, attackers hurled
rocks at the buses carrying the Witnesses, striking one passenger in
the head. Several Witnesses were dragged from the buses and beaten,
while other passengers were robbed. At the same time, the police gave
free passage to busloads of Mkalavishvili's followers, who were bent
on destroying the convention site. The mob burned one and a half tons
of religious literature. Police at the scene participated in the
beatings of Witnesses.
Caucasus Press reported that the Ministry of Internal Affairs would
investigate this assault and take "proper measures." Investigators
have solid grounds for charging the perpetrators. The Constitution of
Georgia, Article 25, guarantees the right of all people to hold a
public assembly. Yet, none of the attackers have been prosecuted. Five
months after this attack, Keston News Service reported that a lawyer
for Guram Sharadze, the leader of the political movement "Georgia
Above All!," admitted that Sharadze had influenced the authorities in
Marneuli and Zugdidi to prevent the holding of two conventions of
Jehovah's Witnesses.
For more information about the violation of human rights in Georgia,
see the following web site:
http://www.watchtower.org/library/g/2002/1/22/article_01.htm
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