A group of 15 members of Congress are appealing to the president of the former Soviet republic of Georgia to protect the rights of religious minorities in the mostly Orthodox Christian nation.
Citing repeated attacks on Baptists, Pentecostals and especially Jehovah’s Witnesses since 1999, the lawmakers chided Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze in a May 15 letter for “not taking effective steps to deter individuals and groups from employing violence against minority faith communities.”
The bipartisan appeal from members of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe comes at a time when the United States is boosting its role in Georgia by sending military aid and advisers to help root out reported terrorists in the country’s lawless Pankisi Gorge.
A spokesman for the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Georgia, Christian Presber, was skeptical May 29 that the letter would have much of an effect on a government that has shown little willingness to take on Orthodox Christian extremists who are terrorizing other Christians.
“We are somewhat leery of suggesting that this letter will have any impact because of the government’s reluctance to do anything,” said Presber by telephone from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. “It is highly bizarre to have Americans training anti-terriorist troops in Pankisi and at the same time to have a terrorist priest running around clubbing people with crosses and sticks. It is absolutely bizarre.”
Presber was referring to Basili Mkalavishvili, a Tbilisi priest aligned with a schismatic Orthodox group. Mkalavishvili and his followers are blamed for dozens of physical attacks across Georgia on Protestants and Jehovah’s Witnesses, including a March 2001 assault with sticks and brooms on a group of nine visiting American Pentecostal pastors.
More recently, human rights monitors and local television documented Mkalavishvili’s February warehouse burning of thousands of Baptist-owned Bibles and a January attack on Charismatic Protestants worshipping in a rented movie theater.
Neither Mkalavishvili nor his spokeswoman were available for comment.
After years of pleading by religious minorities, Georgian prosecutors took Mkalavishvili to court in January on charges connected with an attack on Jehovah’s Witnesses. Despite at least six attempts, the trial has yet to begin in earnest in part because of disruptive and threatening behavior by Mkalavishvili’s followers inside and outside the courtroom.
Responding to the letter from five House members and 10 senators, Shevardnadze pledged in a May 20 radio interview to push through legislation aimed at curbing religious bias. “The law will protect people from any form of pressure and harassment by representatives of traditional religions, as well as representatives of religious minorities,” he said.
The country’s dominant Georgian Orthodox Church is in favor of such a law, one that “could protect people from dangerous religions,” said Zurab Tskhovrebadze, a church spokesman. He called the Jehovah’s Witnesses a “dangerous, anti-government” group, citing young male members’ common refusal to serve in the military. (RNS)
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