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Patriarchate Denies Religious Discrimination in Georgia

July 25, 2008

Nona Suvariani, Tbilisi

The Public Defender named 13 instances of religion based violence and discrimination in his most recent report. The experts talk about “Orthodox Nationalism”, while the Patriarchate states that there has been no such problem since 2003. 

“The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia and the General Prosecutor’s Office have been recently struggling with religious discrimination more effectively. Compared with previous years, law enforcing bodies have reacted to instances of discrimination and violence against religious minorities more successfully. However, very often, this happens only after the Office of the Public Defender intervenes, notes Sozar Subari in his report on the second part of 2007.

Nugzar Papuashvili, the expert on religious issues agrees with the Public Defender. He is confused why the Public Defender’s report caused such controversy. .

Nugzar Papuashvili: “There are some facts of discrimination but the situation is not pressing. However, if we do not pay attention to the situation on time we shall face serious problems.” He considers that the present situation is caused by “Orthodox Nationalism,” which is encouraged by the law. The expert is talking about Concordat, a Constitutional agreement that exists between the Orthodox Church and the Georgian government.
“The Parliament of Georgia and Georgian Orthodox Church signed a joint “Constitutional Agreement” in 2003. As there is “Ecclesiastic Nationalism” in the country, representatives of other religions have become “domestic emigrants” in Georgia. If a person is not an Orthodox but ethnically Georgian, he is still considered as second-rate citizen. The majority of Orthodox Georgian considers that the ones who are not orthodox especially who are Jehovah Witnesses are dangerous for the country. This situation is only one step away to “real” discrimination from this perception.”

Soso Papuashvili, the Human Rights Center’s lawyer is more sweeping in evaluating the situation. He wrote a report on religious discrimination and knows the problem very well.

“Religious discrimination both de-jure and de-facto exists in our country. The de-jure discrimination comes from the “Constitutional Agreement” (Concordat). In particular, from the provisions that grant superior rights to the Patriarchate compared with other religious minorities. There are several interesting aspects here: The first is the status as the Concordat grants a special status to the Patriarchate while other religious organizations do not have such a special determination. They (other religious organizations) can only registered as private legal entities and not as religious organizations, which keeps them from having equal status before the law.

Many religious organizations and the representatives of the religious minorities complain about this situation. However, nobody wants to take their complaints into consideration. Another aspect of the discussion is one of immunity. For instance, based on the Constitutional Agreement the Catholic Patriarch of Georgia has total immunity. This is when leaders of other religious organizations do not have this kind of immunity. The Orthodox holidays are declared a priori holidays. Even thought the amendments have not been introduced to the Civil Code of Georgia, the Georgian state acknowledges the Orthodox Church marriage ceremony. However, this does not happen with other confessions.”

 

 Soso Papuashvili

Soso Papuashvili, talks about de-facto discrimination as well:

“Orthodox priests are free from compulsory military service while the elders of other religious organizations are not. They can only apply to be release from compulsory service as it is not automatic. 

No one does what Basil Mkalavishvili a defrocked Orthodox priest who used to burn religious literature of other religious groups and beat them together with his followers. He was arrested and now he is serving out a prison sentence. However, we see discrimination facts in everyday life. I attended a religious council meeting several months ago. The council unites the representatives of all religions. All of them said that their children are discriminated at schools when they are forced to learn the history of the Orthodox religion. They considered that the process of teaching is carried out discriminatively and this is forbidden by law. The religion must be taught in an unbiased way; the histories and roles of all other religions must be taught as well. The parents who are not Orthodox Christians cannot complain as their children might be marginalized. The fact is that the Ministry of the Education does not do anything in this regard reinforces the practice. Such one sided religion lessons germinate religions intolerance.”

Soso Papuashvili talks about the property problems which is connected with the fact that the state returned the property the Orthodox Church possessed and lost during the Soviet times. The HRIDC lawyer states that the Patriarchate received those churches that had belonged to the representatives of other religions. For instance, the Patriarchate received the church in Kutaisi, which had belonged to Catholic Church. There was a civil dispute on this case and the Catholics lost the case.

Giorgi Meladze, the lawyer of the Liberty Institute states that the country does not have affective mechanisms for solving such problems. The country must create legal mechanism for resolving the problems regarding historic heritage.

He states that the facts religious discrimination has diminished for the last 2-3 years. As the law enforcing bodies interfere actively, the process has been held in abeyance. However, an explosion threat continues to exist. People must realize that the protection of freedom of religion is essential. “Unfortunately, many people and groups of the society do not admit the freedom of religion as a shared common value. If the law enforcers are not involved in the process of combating religious persecution actively, the situation will escalate again. This will be the worst scenario. The police must work actively and prosecutors arrest those who are responsible.”

Lela Jejelava, the head of Inter Religious Relation’s Department of Patriarchate states that there is no religious discrimination in Georgia.

“Based on the State Department’s and international organizations’ recent researches we can assume that there is no religious discrimination in Georgia. When the facts of religious discrimination used to occur it was not a common problem.”

She considers that the Constitutional Agreement, which is bitterly criticized by the experts, does not discriminate against other religions.  This document was backed by almost all religion representatives. Moreover, she says there is a document that proves her statement.

“The problem is that the activities of religious organizations are not organized by the law. The Parliament of Georgia decided to introduce amendments into the law on private legal entities and allowed religious organizations to register their religions as so called unions-NGOs. Large religious unions such as Jewish, Catholics and Armenians refused on this kind of registration. Effective as a result they have no legal status in this country. Their problems are derived from this decision. For instance, how can the problem of calling the religious people into military be resolved?  If the religious organizations are registered as NGOs, they will not be able to use the benefits the religious organization usually confers. The Code on private legal entity does not say anything about releasing any member of the entity from compulsory military service.”


 

 


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