US Embassy Urges in Vain for Preventing Attacks on Jehovah’s Witnesses

(Tbilisi, Civil Georgia, August 17, 2002) – The U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi issued a statement on 15 August, urging the Georgian authorities to take preventive action to preclude any violence at the congress of Jehovah’s Witnesses, which was scheduled in town of Kaspi, central Georgia, on 16 August.

Georgian authorities could not prevent attacks against the Jehovah’s Witnesses. On August 15, radical orthodox faction members attacked religious minority group in Gori, town in central Georgia and in Kaspi, beating Jehovah’s Witnesses and burning their literature.

Jehovah’s Witnesses blame ultra-nationalist MP Guram Sharadze and dissident Christian Orthodox group led by excommunicated priest Basil Mkalavishvili in attacks. Mkalavishvili and Sharadze accuse Jehovah’s Witnesses of harassing Georgian Orthodox believers.

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