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“Problems of Muslims in Georgia” _ Screening of the Documentary Movie

May 19, 2015
 
Nino Tsotsoria

Human Rights Center showed the documentary called “Problems of Muslims in Georgia” on May 15. Facts of intolerance that happened in the villages Tchela, Plate and Mokhe were shown in this documentary. NGOs, representatives of diplomatic corpus accredited in Georgia and representatives of religious minorities attended the screening. After that they had a discussion about the issues of religious minorities. The meeting revealed that the Muslim Community is still oppressed and persecuted.

“It has been 6 months since the documentary was produced, but existed situation in these villages still remain. Still there is an ongoing conflict between the Orthodox Christians and Muslim Community. State authorities do nothing to investigate the facts of oppression of the Muslims and to punish those people who participated in rousing the confrontation. As it turned out, even the investigation into the damage of the mosque in Plate was just formality and there is no update to this case. The facts of oppression and persecution of the Muslims in the municipality of Adigeni remain problematic and this needs to be examined by the State,” _said director of Human Rights Center Aleko Tskitishvili to humanrights.ge. 

According to the representatives of Muslim Community, problems between the locals still exist. Only reason to this is the inactivity of the Government and fact that they create uneven conditions  for Orthodox Christians and Muslims.
 
“Despite problems, we remain patient and try to live peacefully. We just want the local government to actively get involved in this situation and protect the people’s rights. We hope that there will not be any cases of radicalism and extremism,” said the Mufti of Samtskhe-Javakheti, Mamuka Vashakmadze.

The Imam of Tchela Jambul Abuladze also talks about the severity of the existing situation. According to him the government can resolve the problem and because of this there is a conflict between the locals. 

“Unfortunately, based on our present reality, we can’t find any consolation towards to the issues of religious minorities. Except the efforts of NGOs and International Society to improve the situation, there are no solutions and positive attitudes from the government. It is important that  the government fulfilled its obligation and made us all equal before the Law and  we will never have problems with the locals,” _said the Imam of Tchela Jambul Abuladze. 

The issues of the religious minorities are not only about the Muslim Community. According to other religious minorities the attitude of society towards to nonorthodox people is negative and the government does nothing to resolve this. 

“A part of Georgian Orthodox Christian society is more ruthless to non-orthodox Georgians; I have experienced this on myself several times. Our society identifies its religious affiliation and nationality and it is unimaginable for the majority to accept a nonorthodox Georgian. Unfortunately this problem is acute in our reality and the rights of minorities are protected only with the help of NGOs,”_ the representative of Gospel Faith Church Lela Khonelidze told humanrights.ge. 
 
The documentary was made with financial support of the USA fund “National Endowment for Democracy.”

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