The "Warsaw Human Dimension Conference" continues in Warsaw, the capital of Poland, organized by the current Polish Chairmanship of the OSCE and supported by the OSCE Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.

Today's session of the conference is devoted to the topic "Tolerance and non-discrimination" - the fight against racism, xenophobia, discrimination and intolerance, including on the basis of religion and belief.  The delegation of the State Agency for Religious Issues, consisting of the chairman of the Agency, Zaza Vashakmadze, and the senior specialist of the Legal Maintenance Office, Davit Davitashvili, took part in the work of the session.

            The format of the conference provides for side events, the theme of which should coincide with the theme of the plenary session taking place that day, allowing the participants to single out any specific issue from the OSCE's human dimension commitments and focus on it. The chairman of the State Agency for Religious Issues, Zaza Vashakmadze, addressed the participants at the side event of today's session. He told those gathered in the hall about the facts of the violation of the right to life, religion, expression, education in the native language, free movement of Orthodox Georgians and the facts of intimidation of the population and desecration of sacred sites in the occupied territories of Georgia, A/R of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region.

The chairman of the Agency, using the relevant visual material, presented the gathered with concrete facts about how the occupant Russian Federation destroys the religious buildings in the occupied territories and how it tries to erase the Georgian traces: "In the occupied A/R of Abkhazia, 151 religious buildings have been preserved. At present, we have some information only on 89 of them - most of them are completely destroyed or in a grave condition. There are 555 houses of worship in the occupied Tskhinvali region. At this stage, information (in the form of photographs) are obtained on 267 buildings. Most of them have been destroyed or are in danger of being destroyed. The facts of violations of ecclesiastical (canonical) boundaries by the Russian Church continue. Despite the protests of the Patriarchate of Georgia, clergy members of the Russian Church are engaged in priestly service in Georgian churches, and this despite the fact that the Russian Patriarchate verbally recognizes the jurisdiction of the Georgian Orthodox Church, both in A/R of Abkhazia and in the Tskhinvali region."   

At the end of the meeting, Zaza Vashakmadze presented to the participants the publication of the Agency "Occupied Heritage", in which the cult buildings existing in the occupied territories of Georgia have been gathered together. "Occupied Heritage" is another attempt to make our voice heard by the civilized world in order to protect the ancient monuments of Georgian culture from destruction, our Orthodox, Jewish, Catholic, Armenian, Lutheran houses of worship, which for the citizens of Georgia are a part of the centuries-old history, the cultural heritage confirming the connection with the oldest civilizations of the world" - said Zaza Vashakmadze.said.