For Immediate Release
February 29, 2000
(Georgian in PDF)

Tbilisi court protects religious freedom in Republic of Georgia

Today, the Isani-Samgori District Court in Tbilisi upheld religious freedom by refusing an application to ban Jehovah's Witnesses in the Republic of Georgia. A report issued by a panel of religious experts consulted by the court said they "found no aggression of any kind" in the religious literature of Jehovah's Witnesses and urged religious tolerance in Georgia.

The plaintiff, parliamentarian Guram Sharadze, and his political party "Georgia Over All!" had tried to convince the civil court that Jehovah's Witnesses should be banned and import of their literature stopped, alleging that they were anti-State, anti-national and anti-Orthodox.

In November, the court heard testimony from nine lay witnesses. The hearing was adjourned to permit a panel of court-appointed experts to analyze the literature of Jehovah's Witnesses. The report, prepared by the Institute of Philosophy in the Academy of Sciences of Georgia and the Faculty of Sociology of the Javakhishvili State University in Tbilisi, stated that the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses do not involve the Georgian state or the Georgian Orthodox Church.

"This organization is one interpretation of Christian teaching; it is based on the Bible with its own distinctive understanding and does not touch on Georgian statehood or the Georgian nation at all," the report stated. "The principles . . . are not anti-Orthodox."

The expert panel said that an attack on one religious faith is an attack on the freedom of all. "[V]ariance in the interpretations of the Bible . . . will be a subject of dialogue, discussion and debate, but discussions and debates should not grow into prohibitions and insults." The report also warned that prohibitions on religious freedom as urged by the plaintiff would be moving back toward "dictatorship."

"The decision is of benefit to all citizens of Georgia, not only Jehovah's Witnesses," said Mamuka Chabashvili, Georgian defense attorney in the case. "The right of religious freedom belongs to all, not only those of the majority faith."

Chabashvili said he hopes that the court's intolerance of religious bigotry will send a message to extremists in Gldani who have physically attacked Jehovah's Witnesses, including women and children, four times in the past four months. None of the attackers has been prosecuted. President Eduard Shevardnadze had condemned the October 17, 1999, mob attack on Jehovah's Witnesses and called for an investigation.

Jehovah's Witnesses are officially recognized in more than 150 countries, including all nations in Europe. They have more than 14 million followers worldwide and almost 36,000 in Georgia.

Contact in Georgia: Arno Tüngler, telephone +995 (32) 93-91-90
Or +995 (32) 76-27-58; Fax: +995 (32) 76-95-98