GEORGIA: Will mob halt Assyrian Catholic centre?

By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <;

Forum 18, Norway
Oct 19 2006

Assyrian Catholics in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi fear more mob
attacks, after a religious and cultural centre was attacked by a mob,
Forum 18 News Service has learnt. "The Orthodox Church and
fundamentalists don’t want a Catholic presence," Fr Benny Yadgar told
Forum 18. "If we start to use the centre for worship these fanatics
could attack our people with knives and wooden posts. Our people have
a right to be protected." Fr Yadgar insists that the problems do not
come from the authorities, but a current signature campaign could
lead to pressure on the authorities. Police have refused to comment
to Forum 18 on the attacks. The Georgian Orthodox Church and the
Parliamentary Human Rights Committee – unlike human rights activists,
religious minorities and the Human Rights Ombudsperson – have refused
to defend the Assyrian Catholics. "I called on Patriarch Ilya to
defend our church, but he says it is not his business," Fr Yadgar
stated.

One month after a hostile mob invaded and damaged a new religious and
cultural centre Tbilisi’s Assyrian Catholics are building in the
Georgian capital, the community lives in fear of attack. "The
Orthodox Church and fundamentalists don’t want a Catholic presence in
Georgia," the community’s priest Fr Benny Yadgar told Forum 18 News
Service from Tbilisi [T’bilisi] on 18 October. "I fear that if we
start to use the centre for worship these fanatics could attack our
people with knives and wooden posts. Our people have a right to be
protected."

Giorgi Khutsishvili, head of the Tbilisi-based International Center
of Conflict Negotiations, said the "disturbing" attack was instigated
by fundamentalist Orthodox determined to prevent a Catholic church
being built. "This is a clear issue: the Assyrian community has the
right to build its centre," he told Forum 18 on 18 October. "So what
if it is going to be used for worship?" His centre has hosted a
meeting of the multi-faith Religions Council to discuss the issue.

Fr Yadgar insists that the problems do not come from the authorities.

"The government says: ‘Go ahead, don’t worry!’" he told Forum 18. He
added that the police had offered to send officers to protect the
building, as long as the Assyrians paid for it, an offer the
community had turned down. "We don’t want the police to have to stand
at the doors of our place of worship." But he fears that a signature
campaign now underway in the local district could lead to further
pressure on the authorities. "They go around saying they need 200,000
signatures to block us."

Fr Yadgar said the office of the Human Rights Ombudsperson has been
sympathetic and has scheduled a 27 October meeting to discuss their
concerns to which he and the Catholic bishop, Giuseppe Pasotto, have
been invited.

Forum 18 was unable to reach Georgi Siradze, police chief for
Vake-Saburtalo district where the Assyrian Catholic centre is based,
to find out how the rights of the community will be protected.

Reached on 19 October, the duty officer said the police were not
allowed to give information to journalists and refused to give
Siradze’s number.

Fr Yadgar said the Georgian Orthodox Patriarchate has failed to speak
out against the threats. "I called on Patriarch Ilya to defend our
church, but he says it is not his business."

Despite the fact that the attack was widely reported in the media and
was the subject of a debate on Rustavi-2 television, Zurab
Tskhovrebadze, spokesperson for the Orthodox Patriarchate, told Forum
18 on 19 October he had never heard anything about any problems over
the Assyrian Catholic centre. "If it was true, of course it would be
unacceptable for us Orthodox to use force, whether for political or
religious ends."

The Orthodox Patriarchate retains a powerful hold over society and
the government and has successfully prevented almost all minority
faiths from openly building new places of worship in recent years
(see forthcoming F18News article). Some Georgian Orthodox priests
have a record of inciting mob violence against religious minorities
(see eg. F18News 25 May 2005
=569). Intolerance of
religious minorities is widespread within Georgian society, despite
some legal improvements (see F18News 24 May 2005
=568).

Georgia’s politicians have shown little interest in the Assyrian
Catholics’ concerns. "This was not an attack – it was merely
misinterpretation of the feelings of people," Lali Papiashvili,
deputy head of the Parliamentary Human Rights Committee, told Forum
18 from Tbilisi on 19 October. "People were falsely informed by some
kinds of activists that the building may cause religious problems for
the local population." She denied that anyone would object to the
building of a non-Orthodox place of worship. "I don’t have any
information that the Assyrian population is afraid."

Papiashvili’s colleague, Elene Tevdoradze, who chairs the
Parliamentary Human Rights Committee, was equally unconcerned. "I
haven’t been to the Assyrian centre, but I’ve received no
complaints," she told Forum 18 from Tbilisi on 18 October.

Human rights activists and other religious minorities, however, have
defended the embattled Assyrian Catholic community. "The city
authorities were wrong to take into account Orthodox objections to
the Assyrian centre," Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili, head of Georgia’s
Baptist Church, told Forum 18 on 4 October. Support for the Assyrians
has also come from the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Lutherans,
Fr Yadgar told Forum 18.

Fr Yadgar said the new centre was invaded by a mob of about 60 people
on 18 September, three or four days after anonymous, undated leaflets
started to circulate in the district, stirring people up against the
Catholics and urging them to come to the centre. "The letter alleged
that Catholics are aggressive proselytisers who killed our monks in
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It also alleged they marry
cats and dogs and give the Eucharist to animals."

Fr Yadgar was away at the time of the mob invasion, but Giuni Gulua
was one of two community members who tried to explain to television
journalists and to the mob why the community was building the centre.

"Part of the mob obviously had no clue as to why they were there, but
the other part was very aggressively hostile, saying we had no right
to build a Catholic church," she told Forum 18 on 19 October. "We
explained that we had all the legal documents we needed to build the
church, but many of them weren’t prepared to listen to us. We then
left to avoid any possibility of violent confrontation." She said
some of the mob then went down to the cellar and damaged the interior
walls.

Fr Yadgar said the cultural centre deliberately combines classrooms
and meeting rooms with a sanctuary for worship. "Without
Christianity, we Assyrians have no culture, so it is natural the two
go together," he told Forum 18. "But in any case, we are not
recognised in law as a religious organisation and do not have the
right to build a church." After initial difficulties (see F18News 14
November 2003 ) , he
eventually managed to get all the approvals they needed from the city
authorities. Construction work began in 2004, he added, but finding
the necessary money has delayed building. "Because of the situation
in Iraq we have had no support from there."

Although all the external work is now complete, Fr Yadgar said
completing the interior could take another year, especially in the
wake of the damage and any potential attack. (END)

For the comments of Georgian religious leaders and human rights
activists on how the legacy of religious violence should be overcome,
see

For more background see Forum 18’s Georgia religious freedom survey
at

A printer-friendly map of Georgia is available at
las/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=georgi