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An entry visa for Russia was denied for another Catholic priest, the head of the Yaroslavl Catholic parish, Fr Stanislav Krajniak. This is the third case in recent months in which resistance to "Catholic expansion" into Russia has been displayed.
The Yaroslavl Catholic parish was registered two years ago. As reported to a K-D correspondent, the congregation itself numbers almost 80 Catholics although usually fewer attend services. The services themselves are held in an apartment located in a typical "Khrushchev-style" building on Tolbukhin street in Yaroslavl. The apartment contains a chapel, a guest room for nuns, and a library. Catholics say that they have often asked Yaroslavl authorities to permit them to build their own church, but they have not managed to get anything. Before the revolution there was a Catholic church on Kooperativnaia street, but now this building is a residence.
In addition to Yaroslavl, the Catholic flock in the province includes another in the village of Novoe, twenty kilometers from Pereslavl. A Catholic settlement was established here with resources from a department of the world Christian charity fund "Triumph of the heart". In the summer, local school children are invited to vacation here at the fund's expense. It is planned to open a center for rehabilitation of drug addicts in the future.
In August the head of the Yaroslavl parish, thirty-year-old Stanislav Krajniak, traveled to his native Slovakia. He planned to go from there to Cracow for a ceremony devoted to the pope's visit and then return to Russia. But problems arose for Fr Stanislav's return. Russian authorities denied him an entry visa without an explanation of the reasons.
As the chairman of the Yaroslavl Catholic parish council, Liudmila Borisova, told K-D, the question of who will replace Fr Stanislav has now been decided. For now Fr Joseph will come from Vologda. Incidentally, the unpleasantness around Fr Stanislav happened several months after a massive evangelistic campaign had been conducted in Yaroslavl. The Catholics rented all movie theaters of the city for two weeks in order to show the "Jesus" film, and the showing of the film was accompanied by Catholic sermons and distribution of appropriate literature. To be sure, Fr Stanislav Krajniak had this to say about his activity: "We have no desire to win people into the Catholic faith. If you are Orthodox, that is fine, too. The main thing is that you believe."
The incident involving Stanislav Krajniak is not unique. Just recently several Catholic priests have been thrown out of Russia. Earlier Fr Jerzy Mazur, who served in the Irkutsk Catholic church, was denied an extension of his visa. On 19 April Russian authorities declared him persona non grata. A week before that the rector of the Catholic parish in Vladimir and Ivanovo, Fr Stefano Caprio, was barred from the country. Fr Stefano had gone to Italy for a family celebration, but, as Catholics report, at the airport his visa was torn out so that he was not able to return. Fr Stefano discovered that he did not have a visa only when he was in Italy.
The general secretary of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Russia, Igor Kovalevsky, stated in a conversation with a K-D reporter that he "does not know anything about any activity by Fr Krajniak that would be in violation of Russian legislation and could serve as a basis for the refusal to issue a visa." At the same time it is evident that what happened has bewildered Mr. Kovalevsky. "We respect the right of every state to establish the procedures for entry and exit, but a refusal to a third one of our priests now evokes confusion in us," he added. This does not mean that the incident involving Fr Krajniak will serve as an occasion for Russian Catholics to raise a stormy protest against Russian authorities. According to Igor Kovalevsky,after a similar case in April involving a more highly placed Catholic, Bishop Jerzy Mazur, Russian Catholics asked the Russian government for explanations, but so far no answer has been received. "If there was no reaction regarding Mazur, then there is nothing to say now," Mr. Kovalevsky concluded.
At the Russian foreign ministry a K-D reporter was told that "the situation is being studied," but specific comment was withheld. The Moscow patriarchate denies any participation in the exile of the priests. "The Russian Orthodox church does not, and cannot, have anything to do with this since it is separated from the state and does not have the least ambition to participate in the making of administrative decisions," a representative of the patriarchate, Viktor Malukhin, declared. (tr. by PDS, posted 30 August 2002)
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One must see more than a political conflict in the Vakhitovsk district court of the city of Kazan. Because behind the private, to some degree incidental case, one can make out the conflict between the norms of civil law and the dogmas of faith, in this case written in the Quran. You will agree that the conflict is no laughing matter, although it arose, at first glance, from caprice: three Muslim women refused to be photographed for their passport without their head scarf. They appealed to the Quran and the passport officials appealed to the MVD instruction. Proceeding from the fact that according to the constitution Russia is a secular state and the church is separated from the state, civil law must not permit exceptions. That is the meaning of the judicial decision. So to speak, "render to God what is God's and to Caesar what is Caesar's." But this requires of judges if not courage, at least real independence, if one considers that the conflict arose in a Muslim enclave. At the same time the Ecclesiastical Board of Muslims of Tatarstan declared its support for the women and the mufti of this region spoke all about the violation of the constitutional rights of the women who profess Islam and hardly about their being insulted.
Wasn't that verdict politics arrayed in legal form? Because the verdict confirmed the unity of the law on the territory of a federated and multiconfessional state. Unfortunately, things are by no means always that way. Law enforcement agencies are nevertheless unable to avoid political aspects and aspirations. Including the case of conflict associated with the religious convictions of people. Until now the majority of the population has had prejudices with regard to beliefs and sects that are not contained in the "recognized" confessions. "Sectarian" is a curse word in our country. Sects, as it were, stand outside the law on freedom of conscience and faith. Of course, there are religious associations of a superstitious type and extremist variety. They are clearly identified and forbidden by law; there is no question about them. But after all some associations, that by the way are registered by the Ministry of Justice, still are at least suspect to the authorities. These include, for example, Jehovah's Witnesses, who incidentally are scattered throughout the world. But now an investigator of the Moscow city prosecutor's office issued a ruling: Jehovah's Witnesses violate international and Russian laws, trample the constitution of the Russian federation, although no specific cases of crimes committed by members of the organization have been found. How is it possible to violate the law and trample the constitution without specific actions? Is it really only in their thoughts, for which it is well known they cannot be convicted. True, the investigator did not propose to take the case to court; this was a ruling about closing the case. This example is a simple case of the model of repressive intent of a representative of authority.
There is no doubt that it was political considerations that produced the whole "moral" case against the writer Sorokin. Attorneys and writers were equally convinced that this case had no legal basis. But the process was started anyway. It would be good if it got to court since that is the only place that is authorized to put the dot on the i. If there were no judicial verdict in the "case of the head scarves," one does not know what the documents would look like because then the passport officials would act in accordance with their own concepts. It is a pity that the accusation against the Jehovists about trampling the constitution without showing actual violations of it did not get to court. The investigator's finding still opens up the possibilities for zealous bureaucrats. And if there is no trial on the case of the writer Sorokin, writers will not know the limits or extent of creative freedom.
In a democratic law-based society the court is the highest instance, while in a totalitarian regime it is the one-party ideological government. Only in contrast to the latter, the court is internally democratic. It represents and comprises various points of view. True, our courts still have not become as independent as they should be. True, there also is servility before authority and fear of criminals and adherence to traditions. Our courts still have not been embued with that consciousness that supports the dignity of their overseas colleagues: "the court is not right because it is right but because it is the court."
Of course there is an exaggeration in this adage. It could lead to arbitrariness. But without awareness of their dignity and their mission, judges will not become truly, and not just in words, independent. Without independent courts it will be impossible to resolve a single socially significant conflict. Two years have gone by since the destruction of the "Kursk." Volumes of documents have been written: studies by scholars, conclusions of experts, conclusions by prosecutors. It still is being discussed in public, who is guilty, a mindless torpedo or irresponsible people? Accusations have not ceased, nor have justifications of officers and ministries and there still has not been the finality of a judicial verdict. Incidentally, when submarines were destroyed in America and England, it was by the verdicts of the courts that all investigations and arguments about the responsibility of officials were closed. This is state policy. Every judicial decision, whether it pertains to elections for governor or seizure of a pensioner's garden, mass disorders or contract murder, has a political element. This is not to say anything about social, national, confessional, or moral conflicts. And many verdicts (just like the decision by contract judges regarding a photo for a passport) give evidence that our legal system is still in quest of independence, which is the final goal of legal reform. (tr. by PDS, posted 23 August 2002)
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Leonard Romney's great-great grandparents personally knew Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons. The president of the Russia Moscow South mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Romney retired from his position as an assistant vice president at the University of Utah a year before he and his wife, Kathryn, arrived in Moscow in June 2000. Romney recently spoke with The Moscow Times about the challenges -- both political and spiritual -- that Mormon missionaries face in Russia.
Q: Which segments of society appeal most to the Mormon Church and why?
A: We do not discriminate in our activities when relating to people. We deal with individuals or groups of individuals regardless of their social status or political affiliations. As I think about the current membership of our church, there are people from all groups. The greatest percentage of our membership comes from what we would call the middle or lower income levels of Russian society. That is to be expected, however, since they constitute the vast majority of Russian society.
Q: Do you feel Russians are slow to accept your religious beliefs after decades of official atheism?
A: No, not necessarily. Our religion is a wonderful but not easy religion. It is one that is to be lived all day, every day, so it is hard to make the transition from one's previous life to life in the church. We find this same response in many countries of the world. Yet the message of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, if lived, brings joy, peace, happiness and hope.
What has really surprised me is how strong the beliefs and spirituality of the Russian people remained during the time of atheism. Often, when we talk to people, they tell us stories of courage in which babushkas saw to it that their grandchildren received religious teachings, in the face of persecution from the government.
Q: What particular problems confront your organization here and how do you attempt to solve them?
A: One big problem has to do with our health code. We do not believe that alcohol or tobacco is healthy. The use in this country of those two types of products is extremely high. Those who become members of our church and who have been smoking or drinking for a long time find it very hard to resist the temptation to return to their old ways because of the addictive capacity of alcohol and tobacco. Love and support from our other members and our missionaries help them. We also offer health fairs to interested groups. These are educational puppet shows that are aimed at young people to help them realize the dangers of smoking and drinking.
Also, we find that the amount of disinformation about the Mormons is substantial. Even reputable newspapers and journalists often fall back on using literature published by those who are trying to destroy us to explain who we are and what we believe. Some of the information is simply ludicrous and other information is defamatory. Much of it contains alleged facts that are easily checked and corrected. For example, a newspaper in one of our cities published a story about Mormon boys only being allowed to marry their sisters and that they were forbidden from getting driver's licenses. That is just plain silly, as well as an insult to the intelligence of the readers.
Q: In what ways have you encountered resistance from the Russian Orthodox Church?
A: Certainly, there are ways in which we have sometimes been frustrated, but I don't see any profit in talking about it. We do not seek to tear down any other churches. We recognize the good they are doing in society.
I would like to simply say that I come from Salt Lake City, Utah. In my city there is a beautiful Russian Orthodox Church. They have many wonderful members. When the Russian Orthodox Church first came to Salt Lake City, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints gave them the land on which to build their church. It is on one of the most beautiful and central streets of our city. They are most welcome in our community.
Q: Do you sometimes face political interference in your activities?
A: Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and other leaders in regions where we work have placed our organization on a list of "near-terrorist organizations," feeling we constitute some sort of physical threat. That is simply based on ignorance and fear of the unknown.
Some officials think our young missionaries are spies for the U.S. government. We are not. There is no relationship between our church and the U.S. government other than the fact that our church headquarters are located in the United States. Some of our apartments and phones have been bugged, our letters and packages opened, our e-mails reviewed. But so be it. We have nothing to hide or be embarrassed about. One of our articles of faith states, "We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers and magistrates in obeying, honoring and sustaining the law."
We honor and respect Russia and pray for its well-being and that it may flourish.
Q: What have been the greatest achievements since you started operating in Russia?
A: We began our work here in 1989 with four missionaries. We now have 1,300 missionaries working in eight missions from Smolensk to Vladivostok. We are a nationally registered organization in Russia. Our growth has been steady over the past 14 years. We are finding better facilities to meet in and have built a few of our own meeting houses.
Also, we have been able to contribute to humanitarian causes many useful items such as clothes and medical supplies valued between $5 million and $8 million. Included have been numerous small projects in individual orphanages, hospitals and schools. Our missionaries are required to give several hours of service each week.
Q: How do you estimate the numerical strength and possibility of growth of the Mormon Church in Russia compared to, say, a decade ago?
A: A decade ago, our membership was only a few hundred. Now there are more than 15,000 members of our church in Russia. The growth pace was faster in the beginning, slowed somewhat in the past few years and now seems to be increasing again. We expect to continue to grow and be an influence for good in the lives of individuals and to be of service to this great country.
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A struggle with the devil himself was begun in court by a novice of the Solovki convent. Or, as the holy Orthodox woman believes, with his accomplices among whom she considers the tax inspection to be. In other words, the church servant is trying to abolish INN (taxpayer identification number) which she considers a satanic sign.
The Savelov court of the capital seemed like a house of worship on the day of the hearing of the suit from the scribe of the annex of the Solovki convent, the forty-one-year-old Nina Evgeneva, against the tax inspection No. 14 of the northern administrative district of Moscow. The plaintiff was accompanied by nuns and priests who held icons and crosses in their hands and even whispered prayers during the trial. The Orthodox believers were called to their crusade by the order of the Ministry of Taxes and Duties of the Russian federation regarding assigning INN to citizens. The novice Evgeneva asked the court to order the inspection to give her an account without an identification number. The woman thinks that in giving her a number the tax collectors are violating her constitutional right to freedom of religious convictions.
In her argument the convent servant appeals to the Bible. She maintains that replacing people's names with a number is evidence of the appearance of the devil on earth (which sacred scripture warns about). Evgeneva considers another weighty argument to be that supposedly in order to enter INN into a computer data base it is necessary to use numbers containing the figures 666. As the plaintiff declared in court, her Christian faith does not permit her to use the sign of the antichrist.
The administration of the tax inspection politely declared that national, religious, and other such criteria are not taken into account in collection taxes. Thus the assignment of INN should not harm anybody; the account number is needed for creating a data base of tax payers. Calling the plaintiff to rational thinking, the defendants even cited the patriarch. It is well known that the head of the Russian Orthodox church also was against the individual numeration, but later he consented. The steadfast plaintiff holds to her own position and demands an expert analysis of INN in order to certify that it is connected with the number 666. (tr. by PDS, posted 23 August 2002)
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Yesterday at the MID building a demonstration was conducted by the Buddhist community demanding permission for the Dalai Lama to come to Russia. Buddhists came thousands of kilometers from Kalmykia, Buriatia and Tyva to this demonstration. On a gloomy morning in the capital they stood in from of MID with portraits of this spiritual leaders and posters: "Give a visa to the Dalai Lama!" People with beads and bracelets, in long religious clothing, sang mantras. But, it seems, the cold wind carried the sounds that are unfamiliar to the Muscovite ear away from the building. As is known, the Russian consular service denied the spiritual leader of Buddhists an entry visa.
A "Vremia MN" reporter asked the picketers to describe the point of the demonstration.
"The Dalai Lama was refused a visa. Most likely it was a matter of big politics in which there is not place for the little man. Obviously, Russia today depends on its neighbors to a great extent. That includes such a state as China. They completely disrespect us and do not pay attention to our opinion." Osalen Kalanov, a believer from Buriatia;
"Why does the Russian government not pay attention to its own people? After all, they say that all citizens are equal regardless of their religious confession. We are Buddhists and we need our teacher. We have waited for him for ten years. They are simply depriving us of our rights to faith." Atzemmarima , from Tyva;
"Representatives of MID have not given any explanation for the refusal of the visa. But to deprive Buddhists of Russia of the opportunity to see His Holiness is simply blasphemy against us." Gennady Serdinov, chairman of the karma center of Kalmykia.
A police cordon stood in front of the ministry. Representatives of the power structures also stated on the day before that the demonstration was not sanctioned. But the Buddhists did not intend to back down. Finally the picketers were admitted to the MID building. There the director of the department of security, Leonid Safonov, said that the decision to refuse to issue a visa was made not by MID but by a higher authority. To be sure, it has not become clear just which authority. However Safonov promised that the believers' request would be relayed to the government. After several minutes OMON troops arrived and the demonstration ended. The Buddhists, along with their signs and tambourines, were loaded into a bus and taken off to the police department.
And although this demonstration was somewhat like the famous "Free Yury Detochkin!" and seemed amazingly naive, the Buddhists did achieve a small victory. They did not back down and they were simply dragged away. (tr. by PDS, posted 23 August 2002)
SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING
by Maksim Trudoliubov
Vedomosti, 23 August 2002
As a reason for refusing the Dalai Lama entry into the country, the Russian authorities have advanced a version about China. "In the review of this question, naturally the position of the People's Republic of China should be taken into account; its leadership has a sharply negative view of the political activity of the Dalai Lama," one of the workers of Russian MID said. Of course, whenever the Dalai Lama crosses some border China always issues its ritual declaration about its negative view of the Buddhist's political activity. Confucius simply does not tell the Chinese to behave any differently. The lama will travel and PRC will declare.
But the explanation about China somehow does not ring true. Something isn't right here. The Dalai Lama would come here and visit Kalmykia and Buriatia and conduct a service in the Ivolginsk datsan, and China would issue its declaration. Nobody would notice a thing, neither the lama nor the declaration. The Russian foreign ministry has some real secret reason. This is a very difficult question. In answering such questions the Zen master Hakuin advised his disciples to go and try to hear the sound of one hand clapping. Some left in confusion and then were tormented all their lives. Others, a few, began meditating, and after a week, or a month, or a year, they attained enlightenment. After all Zen teaches not merely by words, and even not many words, but by experience without any words.
And so after some meditation it has become absolutely clear that the Dalai Lama's not coming to Russia will do much more for the development of Buddhism in Russia than would his coming. The decision not to admit the Dalai Lama is a very wise decision that obviously was made by a person who is directly acquainted with Buddhism. That means, that the Russian MID is being run by secret Buddhists. It is strange to say, but perhaps they are even in other ministries. Judo, for example, is Japanese combat. All eastern single combat forms are elements of spiritual teachings.
It is quite obvious. The Russian leadership is trying to familiarize Russians, Muslims, Catholics, Jews, and Orthodox, with the great and ancient religious culture that was born in India and spread to China, Korea, Japan, and other asiatic cultures. Conversations about a Russian national idea are merely a ruse. Actually those who made the decision (possibly we do not even know their real names) have long understood that only Buddhism can help us. They are acting very rationally, completely in a Buddhist fashion. They know that simply to start preaching Buddhism would make this religion the state religion and guarantee its collapse. Our whole history gives evidence of this. It is strange that neither the communists nor the Orthodox ever understood this. The present leadership of Russia, possibly, is the wisest in all our history and almost certainly they will achieve everything. We will become Buddhists and we also will achieve everything.
There is a rival (or substitute) idea: make Russians Catholics. The Russian Orthodox church is working on this one, since there cannot be any other explanation for the refusal to admit a Catholic bishop into the country. But the church can hardly be expected to succeed since Catholicism, in contrast to Buddhism, preaches by words. (tr. by PDS, posted 23 August 2002)
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In its press release of August 16, 2002, the American Embassy reported that "the American ambassador sent a political officer to observe the peaceful gathering of Jehovah's Witnesses" who later reported that "a private dwelling, the meeting facilities, and literature of the Georgian Jehovah's Witnesses had been completely destroyed by heavy objects and fire. The press release further stated that "the American Embassy decries attacks on religious freedom" and "is doubly concerned that the Jehovah's Witnesses were violently prohibited from meeting peacefully in accordance with Georgian law and international standards to which Georgia adheres."
A convention of Jehovah's Witnesses planned for today was cancelled after police allowed religious extremists to ransack the convention site, demolish equipment, and burn the benches yesterday night. Meanwhile, other extremists carried out a similar attack on a meeting place of Jehovah's Witnesses in the city of Gori, with one victim being hospitalized. According to eyewitnesses, the attacks were carried out by followers of renegade Orthodox priest Vasili Mkalavishvili and members of "Jvari," an ultra-Orthodox extremist organization. Among those identified was Petre (Gia) Ivanidze, who along with Vasili Mkalavishvili has been charged with attacks of a similar nature, but has never been arrested despite his open ongoing participation in such attacks.
August 17, 2002
ATTACKS ON MINORITY FAITHS RISE IN POST-SOVIET GEORGIA
by Steven Lee Myers
New York Times, 17 August 2002
The Jehovah's Witnesses were planning a summer revival in a field next to a river gully here today, but a mob came the night before.
Two dozen men wearing crosses of the Georgian Orthodox Church arrived on buses and ransacked the home of the host, Ushangi Bunturi. They piled Bibles, religious pamphlets and Mr. Bunturi's belongings in the yard and burned them, he said today. They filled the baptismal pool with diesel fuel.
The police went, too, including the local police chief, Ramazi Gogiashvili, two witnesses said. It is not clear whether the police joined the attack or simply observed it. No one was arrested. What was remarkable about the attack, and another one last night at a Jehovah's Witnesses hall in a village called Otarsheni, was how unremarkable attacks like them have become in this country.
Georgia, the United States' closest ally in the Caucasus, has experienced a wave of religious violence in the last three years that is increasingly calling into question the country's willingness — or ability — to protect democracy and human rights.
"You can see what freedom of faith, what freedom of assembly we have," said Mr. Bunturi, 40, as he stood by the charred remains in the field beside his home this evening. "They say we have these rights, but they do not act on them."
In many of the former republics of the Soviet Union, including Russia, the birth of freedom has brought with it religious tensions, particularly between the predominant Orthodox churches and newly emergent religions and sects.
But Georgia is unique in the intensity of the violence toward religious minorities, and in the evidence of official complicity in the attacks.
Georgia enshrined freedom of religion in its post-Soviet Constitution. But in the rising violence there have been dozens of mob and arson attacks and beatings, especially against the Protestant denominations that established themselves after the fall of Soviet Union, according to the government, church officials and human rights campaigners.
In February a mob looted the offices of the Baptist church in this town 22 miles northwest of the capital, Tbilisi, and burned hundreds of Bibles and other books. Last month a dozen young men beat six staff members of the Liberty Institute, an American-financed advocacy group in Tbilisi that has been an outspoken critic of such attacks.
Gennadi Gudadze, the director of the Union of Jehovah's Witnesses, said today that there had been at least a dozen attacks on the church's believers so far this year, often at the large assemblies that the faith conducts.
He fears that the violence, as well as government and court decisions that denied the church official registration in 1999, may once again force it underground.
"At least in the Soviet Union I would know the K.G.B. was chasing me, and we knew what to do," said Mr. Gudadze, who is 40, referring to the Soviet political police. "Now that we have more freedom, we don't know what to do."
The attacks have prompted repeated denunciations from the United States, even as it deepens its relations with Georgia because of the Bush administration's campaign against terrorism and because of Georgia's position as a route for oil pipelines from the Caspian Sea. The rebukes appear to have had little effect.
The State Department's report on religious freedom, published last October, said the rights of religious groups in Georgia were deteriorating, citing attacks against Jehovah's Witnesses, Baptists, members of the Assembly of God and members of the Hare Krishna sect.
Indeed, the American ambassador, Richard M. Miles, warned the government of threats before the Witnesses' planned meeting today in Kaspi.
"We had hoped that the Jehovah's Witnesses could gather peacefully and in accordance with Georgian law and international standards that Georgia adheres to," he said today.
A majority of Georgians are, nominally at least, members of the Georgian Orthodox Church, which has sought to reassert its social and political influence after being suppressed during Soviet rule. Although Georgia's Constitution separates church and state, the Orthodox Church has a special status, including tax-exemptions not granted to other faiths.
But other faiths that operated underground in Soviet times have also flourished in recent years in Georgia's halting and sometimes chaotic evolution to a non-Communist system. For many ardent Orthodox followers, the growth of other denominations represents a threat to the traditional dominance of their church.
The Orthodox Church has become increasingly linked to nationalist causes, and some of its followers, and even some of its priests, have been implicated in the attacks on other faiths. Others have been openly critical. In June, Zurab Tskhovrebadze, a spokesman for the Georgian Patriarch, Ilya II, called the Jehovah's Witnesses "a fifth column whose activities are directed against Georgia."
In May, President Eduard A. Shevardnadze issued a decree ordering new measures to ensure the rights of worshipers and strongly condemned religious violence.
"A person who commits violent acts actually discredits the religion he tries to protect," he said.
But Alexander Anderson, a senior researcher at the office in Georgia of Human Rights Watch, which monitors the religious violence, dismissed the decree as disingenuous. "He made a similar decree in March of last year," he said, "and nothing happened."
Many of the attacks have been organized by Basili Mkalavishvili, an excommunicated Orthodox priest who rails against what Georgians call "nonbelievers." He is standing trial in Tbilisi, accused of five attacks between September 2000 and March 2001, but remains free as the case has dragged on.
In a newspaper interview published on Thursday, he foreshadowed the violence at the Jehovah's Witness meeting in Kaspi. "I will not be able to stop my people," he said, "and I lay all responsibility for the expected consequences on the Witnesses."
In fact, the attacks occurred as if scripted. Mr. Bunturi said the first sign of trouble in Kaspi was an arson attack on Wednesday night, which destroyed a stage built for the assembly. A local prosecutor and a nationalist member of Parliament, Guram Sharadze, came on Thursday, but only warned Mr. Bunturi not to let the believers gather.
"They told me, `You will be responsible for what happens,' " he said.
About 800 Jehovah's Witnesses were expected today, but after last night's attack, church officials called off the gathering. This morning a group of young men blocked the only road into Kaspi anyway, refusing to let anyone pass. A police officer with them said, "There's going to be a fight, and they won't let anyone through."
No one was injured in the attack in Kaspi. But in Otarsheni, almost simultaneously on Thursday night, a group of 10 to 20 men broke into the compound of the Jehovah's Witnesses' meeting hall where believers meet two or three times a week.
Shalva Mamporia, who lives in the building, tried to run but was caught and badly beaten. So was a neighbor, Omari Kavelidze.
Today a waist-high pile of charred religious pamphlets and Bibles continued to burn.
ATTACK DISRUPTS GEORGIAN CONGRESS
Associated Press, 16 August 2002
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Assailants attacked a group of Jehovah's Witnesses in the former Soviet republic of Georgia and set a fire at the home of one its members, disrupting plans to hold a religious congress there, a lawyer for the group said Friday.
Supporters of Vasily Mkalavishvili, a defrocked Georgian Orthodox priest who rails against evangelical groups, blocked off roads leading into the town of Kaspi, 45 miles west of the Georgian capital Tbilisi, where Jehovah's Witnesses planned to hold a meeting, said lawyer Manuchar Tsimintiya.
The crowds stopped buses heading into town Friday and tried to force passengers to make the sign of the cross, which is a tradition in Orthodox Christianity but not among Jehovah's witnesses. Those who refused were attacked verbally and treated roughly, in some cases dragged out of the buses by force, Tsimintiya said. Police did nothing to intervene, he said.
In a separate pre-dawn attack Thursday, unidentified assailants broke into the yard of Ushangi Bunturi, a Jehovah's Witness in Kaspi who planned to host the congress, and burned a stage that was to be used for the event. Later, on Thursday night, 25 followers of Mkalavishvili broke into the yard, burning religious literature and damaging some equipment, Tsimintiya said.
Local law enforcement officials had approached Bunturi several times, asking him to refuse to host the Jehovah's Witness congress because they couldn't guarantee security, Tsimintiya said. The authorities forced Bunturi to sign a letter taking full responsibility for the event, but he added a footnote saying he had been forced to sign the letter.
About 1,000 Jehovah's Witnesses had been expected to gather at Bunturi's house, where they have held congresses since 1996.
According to the Interfax news agency, the U.S. Embassy released a statement saying it had expressed concern to Georgia's leadership about the disruption of the congress. After President Eduard Shevardnadze met Friday night with U.S. Ambassador Richard Miles and a visiting U.S. congressman, Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat, a Georgian official said Shevardnadze and the government "strongly condemned the rampage," Interfax reported.
The U.S. Embassy could not be reached for comment.
Mkalavishvili, a fiery speaker who was defrocked seven years ago by the Georgian Orthodox Church, opposes the activities of Baptists, Pentecostalists and other evangelical Christian groups that have sprung up in Georgia since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
His followers have frequently attacked Jehovah's Witnesses, disrupted their meetings, and burned books and brochures printed by the group. More than 70 percent of Georgians are Orthodox Christians, though only a fraction of that number regularly attend church.
SHEVARDNADZE WANTS RELIGION LAW
Vremia MN, 20 August 2002
President Eduard Shevardnadze is disturbed by the incidents of oppression in the republic against representatives of the "Jehovah's Witnesses" religious sect. He stressed the necessity of an immediate adoption of a law on religion. (tr. by PDS, posted 23 August 2002)
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The spiritual leader of Buddhists, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, did not receive an entry visa into Russia. An invitation had been sent to him by the associations of Buddhists of three Russian regions, Buriatia, Kalmykia, and Tuva. The leader of Russian Buddhists, Damba Aiusheev, announced earlier that the Dalai Lama would come to Russia on 11 September and take part in all planned events, if he promised not to visit Moscow and St. Petersburg.
However a representative of MID, Boris Malakhov, stated last week that "in the course of working out this question there emerged more clearly indications that there were not as many religious aspects of the visit as there were political ones." The inclusion in the delegation of representatives of the so-called "Tibetan government in exile" gave Moscow a basis (citing the need to take into account the position of the people's republic of China) for refusing the guest a visa.
Having lived now more than four decades outside the borders of China, the Dalai Lama has become the personification of the idea of the nonviolent struggle for freeing Tibet from the "Chinese yoke." For this Beijing awarded him the indelible brand of "separatist," and the West, the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. The Chinese authorities follow with great suspicion the contacts of the Dalai Lama with the outside world, fearing that he will succeed in winning international support for the question of the change of Tibet's status.
Despite his ambiguous political image, the Dalai Lama has already visited Russian Buddhists in 1991 and 1992. He stayed in Moscow in 1994 and in 1996 traveled through the Russian capital on the way to Mongolia. However the more friendly the Russian-Chinese partnership became, the more difficult it was for the Dalai Lama to get to Russian territory. Last year, when he again planned to visit Mongolia, Moscow refused him even a transit visa. The trip had to be cancelled.
Angered by the refusal, Russian Buddhists conducted a small, unsanctioned demonstration of protest on Saturday at the MID headquarters on Smolensk square. It should be noted that this time the Dalai Lama was trying to come to Russia at a very inopportune time. Next week Prime Ministry Mikhail Kasianov is facing difficult negotiations in Beijing, out of which could come multi-billion dollar contracts which would be the salvation for domestic industry. Even without this Beijing has been upset by the drift of its Russian "strategic partner" in the direction of the West and USA. A trip around Russia by "the leader of separatists" would only intensify the nervous suspicion of the Chinese leadership, which fears most of all winding up in isolation in a "hostile cycle." The Taiwan information agency suggests that Moscow did not permit the Dalai Lama to come also because it wanted to assuage Beijing's concern about recent Russian maneuvers on the Caspian Sea. (tr. by PDS, posted 19 August 2002)
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