ICC Note: According to reports, religious minority groups in Georgia, including Protestants and Catholics, are facing discrimination at the hands of the Georgian Orthodox Church. These minority groups are often denied permits to build places of worship because of opposition from Georgian Orthodox leaders. Over time, this underlying tension has given way toward violent physical attacks among the various religious groups.

By Mariam Gavtadze and Eka Chitanava, Tolerance and Diversity Institute

11/05/2015 Georgia (Forum 18) – Non-Georgian Orthodox Church religious communities repeatedly face obstruction from local municipal councils and the State Agency for Religious Issues to building new places of worship, Forum 18 News Service notes. Such problems affect communities such as Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Catholics and Protestants.

Non-Georgian Orthodox communities also face obstruction from national and local state authorities to the restitution of their property confiscated in the Soviet era, obtaining legal title to the land their places of worship are built on, and in meeting for worship in their places of worship (see forthcoming F18News article).

Permits to build non-Georgian Orthodox places of worship are often either not issued or arbitrarily cancelled by local councils. Typically, local Georgian Orthodox clergy and congregation members oppose proposals to build non-Georgian Orthodox places of worship. Then the local council finds excuses to obey Georgian Orthodox demands, even if the demands go against a court decision, often using spurious reasons to deny the building permit application. State authorities also often tell non-Georgian Orthodox communities to stop trying to build a place of worship on their own land and find some other land to build on. If challenged about their actions, state bodies and the courts often deny that they are discriminating on grounds of religion or belief.

Hostility leads to violent physical attacks.

Georgian Orthodox hostility has led to extreme physical violence against those they dislike. There were many such attacks on non-Georgian Orthodox people and communities between 1996 and 2003. Mobs severely attacked and injured people, destroyed places of worship, and took and burned religious literature. Most of the victims were Jehovah’s Witnesses, but Baptists, Catholics, Pentecostals and True Orthodox Christians were also attacked. Few of the perpetrators were ever brought to justice.

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