The religious freedom that Jehovah’s Witnesses in Georgia enjoy today stands in sharp contrast to their situation a few years ago. The Witnesses now have legal registration, and the government allows them to worship freely. But the circumstances were much different from 1999 to 2003, when the government at the time allowed religious extremists to attack the Witnesses viciously and refused to prosecute the perpetrators.

The persecution the Witnesses experienced during that dark period led them to file several applications with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). One of these applications, entitled Case of Tsartsidze and Others v. Georgia, addressed three incidents that occurred in Georgia during 2000 and 2001 involving mob violence, disruption of religious meetings, destruction of property, and physical and verbal abuse by police.

On January 17, 2017, the ECHR released its judgment in the Tsartsidze case and found that the rights of the Witnesses had been violated. The ECHR recognized that Georgian police were either directly involved in the incidents or failed to intervene to protect the victims. It also found that Georgian courts and judges failed to restrain the aggression against the Witnesses by their own biased and superficial examination of the facts.