Tag Archives: religion

Georgian Church fires bishop at centre of ophanage abuse accusations

JUNE 15 2021 (The Bulletin) — After meeting with EU and Georgian government officials, the Georgian Orthodox Church gave way to mounting public pressure by firing the bishop who had run an orphanage at the centre of abuse allegations. The Church appointed Bishop Jakob of Bobde to run the Ninotsminda orphanage which it also said would be renovated and improved.

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— This story was published in issue 48 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on June 16 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Church-run orphanage in Georgia accused of abuses

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TBILISI/JUNE 5 2021 (The Bulletin) — A court in Georgia accused a bishop of presiding over a sadist regime at a school for disabled orphans that beat and sexually abused children, rare criticism of the Orthodox Church in Georgia where it is held in high esteem.

The court order to remove disabled children from the church-run school will also embarrass the ruling Georgian Dream government which has been criticised for its close ties with the Orthodox Church and for being reluctant to carry out a full investigation at the Ninotsminda Orphanage despite evidence of abuse.

Four investigations since the orphanage was opened in 2015 have fallen through.

Anna Arganashvili, head of the Partnership for Human Rights NGO which had pushed for the court’s intervention, said: “The court decreed that if children are in danger today, it must be stopped immediately. This is crucial.”

The Georgian Orthodox Church, and Bishop Spiridon Abuladze whose jurisdiction the orphanage falls under, have denied any wrongdoing and appealed the court’s decision to effectively close the school where 57 children had lived.

Media reported that the Ninotsminda Orphanage, 160km southwest of Tbilisi, is one of three orphanages that the Georgian Orthodox Church runs. Online reports quoted children from the school as saying that they had been placed in stress positions, beaten and abused.

In Georgia, with its instinctively traditional culture, the Orthodox Church is one of the most powerful institutions in the country. Analysts have said that an unofficial alliance with the Orthodox Church has been vital to the Georgian Dream’s election successes since 2012.

Last month the Georgian Dream was one of the only political parties in Georgia not to sign a pledge to protect gay rights, which the Georgian Orthodox Church opposes.

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— This story was published in issue 487 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on June 9 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Fatwa issued against bad driving in Uzbekistan

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JUNE 3 2021 (The Bulletin) — In an effort to improve safety on Uzbekistan’s roads, the state-linked Muslim Board of Uzbekistan issued a fatwa against bad driving. Bad driving that kills people is now considered a sin under the fatwa. Uzbekistan’s roads are dangerous and deadly crashes are common.

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— This story was published in issue 487 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on June 9 2021

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Foundations laid for new Orthodox church in Uzbekistan

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FEB. 5 2021 (The Bulletin) — Metropolitan Vladyka Vikenty, head of the Russian Orthodox Church in Uzbekistan, consecrated a new church in Nukus, the first in Uzbekistan’s western region of Karakalpakstan. Russia has been keen to push its cultural influences in Central Asia over the past few years and the Orthodox Church is known to be close to the Kremlin. Media reported that there are 37 Russian Orthodox Churches in Central Asia.

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— This story was first published in issue 471 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Tajikistan says it has beaten the coronavirus

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FEB. 1 2021 (The Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s government said that it has defeated the coronavirus as there hadn’t been any recorded cases of the virus for three weeks. It immediately ordered the reopening of mosques which had been closed since April as a lockdown precaution. Tajikistan has recorded 90 Covid-19-linked deaths. Analysts said that the real figure was likely to be far higher.

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— This story was first published in issue 471 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Kyrgyz pilgrims blamed for spreading the coronavirus

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JALA-ABAD,Kyrgyzstan/April 5 (The Bulletin) — Resentment is building in south Kyrgyzstan towards groups of pious Muslims who are accused of bringing the coronavirus into the country.

Officials have said that in mid-March infected pilgrims returning from the Hajj to Mecca in Saudi Arabia and members of the Tablighi Jamaat religious organisation, who had visited Pakistan and India, ignored orders to self-isolate. Instead they celebrated their return with a series of feasts, spreading the coronavirus.

South Kyrgyzstan is now the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in the country. More than half of Kyrgyzstan’s 149 coronavirus infections are in the region and in the small town of Nookat, south of Osh, where many of the pilgrims lived, two people have died with the COVID-19 disease caused by the coronavirus. A strict lockdown has been imposed on Osh and Jala-Abad, the region’s two main cities, and the villages that orbit them. Bishkek has also been placed under a lockdown.

Anastasia, a resident of the village of Blagoveshchenka near Jala-Abad, said that she has been unable to work as a shop cashier since the lockdown was imposed.

“People are very angry at the pilgrims who brought this infection to us,” she said. “Now, like everyone, I just have to sit at home and probably have to get into debt.”

Since the state-of-emergency was announced, the streets of Osh and Jala-Abad have emptied. A Bulletin correspondent said that these rules are being tightened every day and that a person on the street without official permission and a passport can now be arrested.

Some people are not merely frustrated with the pilgrims for bringing the coronavirus into Kyrgyzstan, they are also suspicious of the authorities’ motives for the harsh lockdown.

Bolotbek, works as an IT specialist in a state institution in Jalal-Abad, and lives in the village of Bazar-Korgon, 30km from the city. He said that he has been placed on unpaid leave.

“I see it as an attempt to strengthen control over people, following the example of China,” he said. “Of course, the epidemic must be fought, but not by the same harsh measures. Soon people will begin to starve if they do not lift quarantine.”

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— This story was first published in issue 441 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Georgia’s Orthodox Church avoids commenting on Ukraine-Russia split

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JAN. 7 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s Orthodox Church avoided a potentially difficult diplomatic scenario by not commenting on the split from the Russian Orthodox Church by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Instead, two days after the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, signed a decree formalising the split, the Georgian Orthodox Church said that it would not be right for a junior patriarchate to comment on the status of more senior patriarchates. The Georgian Orthodox Church is ranked ninth in the seniority of Orthodox Churches, below the Russian Orthodox Church. Relations are still strained between Russia and Georgia since a war in 2008.
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>>This story was first published in issue 396 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 11 2019

Georgia closes second school linked to Gulen

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TBILISI, AUG. 360 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Georgia closed a second school linked to Turkey’s Gulen movement, nearly four months after they detained one of its senior staff members and accused him of being linked to terrorism.
Turkey has pressured its neighbours into arresting and deporting people it has linked to a failed coup last year that it blames on so-called Gulenists. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have, so far, refused to bend to the pressure but Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and, increasingly, Georgia have acquiesced.
In an interview with the Georgia-based Open Caucasus Media, Gia Murghulia, deputy head of the education ministry’s Council of Authorisation of Secondary Schools said that it had revoked a licence for the private Demirel College in Tbilisi.
He insisted, though, that the school had been closed for teaching failures and not for any political reasons.
“We are not interested in political aspects,” he was quoted as saying.
Others were sceptical and said that the closure was political.
In May, Mustafa Cabuk, a Turkish manager at the school was detained for his alleged links to the Gulen movement. He has since been fighting extradition attempts, saying that he would be tortured if he was sent back to Turkey.
Georgia has also revoked the licence of a school in Batumi linked to the Gulen network and detained a Turkish businessman.
In the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Gulenists, followers of the exiled of the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, headed out from Turkey and set up a series of schools and universities across Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
Georgia has been fostering increasingly close ties with Turkey. It jointly hosts a gas pipeline running from the Caspian Sea to Europe, is developing commercial interests and hosts joint military exercises.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Georgia court convicts priest of attempted murder

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TBILISI, SEPT. 5 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A judge in Tbilisi convicted Archpriest Giorgi Mamaladze of trying to murder the secretary of Patriarch Ilia II, a case that has grip the nation for the past eight months.
Mamaladze was arrested in February trying to board a flight to Berlin, where the Patriarch and his entourage were staying, carrying cyanide. Initially, it was thought the poison was meant for the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church but later it emerged that Mamaladze had intended to poison his secretary Shorena Tetruashvili because of a grudge he held. Ms Tetruashvili is the influential confident of the 84-year-old Patriarch.
Ilia II is one of the most powerful people in Georgia. He has been in this position since 1977.
The bearded and bespectacled Mamaladze has denied the charges and said that he will contest the verdict at the European Court of Human Rights. He chose not to be present in the court when the verdict was read out by the judge. There was no jury in this case. His lawyers stormed out, though, saying that the judge had been pressured into making this decision.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Tajikistan increases anti-headscarf campaign

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AUG. 2 2017 (The Bulletin) — Police in Tajikistan have detained and fined women for wearing hijabs, Islamic headscarves, the Forum 18 News Service reported. Last month, the authorities said they were launching an official campaign against what they described as non-traditional clothing. Forum 18 reported that women have felt “humiliated” for having to remove their headscarves in public.

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(News report from Issue No. 336, published on Aug. 5 2017)