mokhe

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Georgian Muslim villages fight back against Orthodox Church land-grab

•7 min read

Residents of two villages in southern Georgia are suing the government for transferring land they have used for decades to the Georgian Orthodox Church. They claim the lands are vital for them to sustain their families, but local church officials — who plan to build a monastery in the predominantly Muslim area — don’t share their concerns. The land in question is a roughly 8-hectare plot lying between the villages of Kikibo and Dertseli in Adigeni Municipality. Since the 1990s local resi

Friday prayer in Mokhe, Adigeni. Photo Dato Parulava/OC Media.

Freedom of Religion

Violence against religious minorities ‘poorly investigated’ in Georgia

by OC Media

•3 min read

Cases of violence based on religious intolerance between 2013–2016 went largely uninvestigated, according to the Georgian Public Defender’s 2017 human rights report. The report said it should be considered a ‘systematic problem’. The document, published on 2 April, said there were fewer cases of such violence in 2017 compared with previous years, but that the way law enforcement officials deal with them is problematic. The main targets of religious intolerance in 2017 were Jehovah’s Witne

Feature Stories

Video — The story of Mokhe told in the snow

by Volodymyr Soboliev

•4 min read

After a dispute broke out between Christians and Muslims over the ruins of an old building in Mokhe, a village in Adigeni Municipality, the government created a commission to determine the building’s historical belonging. After two years of work, the commission decided not to grant ownership of the ruins to either side. Instead, it declared them a cultural heritage site, named ‘Disputed Building’. Many of the local Muslims had shown distrust towards the commission from the very beginning

Georgia

Voice from Meskheti | ‘Whether in rain or thunderstorms, we pray outside’

by Dato Parulava

•4 min read

After a dispute broke out between Christians and Muslims over the ruins of a building in the village of Mokhe, in southwest Georgia’s Adigeni Municipality, the government stepped in to resolve the situation by pledging to build a new mosque. The building in question, which Muslims in the village claim is a mosque but Christians believe was constructed on the ruins of a church, has been officially declared a ‘disputed building’. The Mokhe Commission, which was created to determine

Discrimination

Islamic literature confiscated at Georgian–Turkish border

by OC Media

•2 min read

Books about Islam, including the Quran, have been confiscated by border guards at the Sarpi customs checkpoint on the Turkish–Georgian border, according to an annual report by Georgia’s Public Defender. According to the report, Muslims carrying the books were delayed at the border, questioned about the purpose of their travel, their links with Turkey, and relations with other Muslims. From the cases filed to the Public Defender, they say it became evident that when crossing the Sarpi c

Georgia

Georgia’s Muslim community dealt double blow in attempts to build mosques

by OC Media

•3 min read

Georgia’s Muslim community received a double blow on 11 May, when Batumi City Hall rejected a petition to construct a second mosque in the city and local authorities in the village of Mokhe rejected a request to transfer ruins in the village, allegedly of a mosque, to the local Muslim community. For decades, Muslims in Batumi, the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara on Georgia’s Black Sea coast, have demanded that land be allocated to construct a second mosque in the city. The city