Minority related news from the Caucasus

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From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2001 11:35:52 +0200 (EET)
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Subject: Minority related news from the Caucasus 

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>

Original sender: Eldar Zeynalov <[email protected]>

Minority related news from the Caucasus 



Ethnic Azeri deprived of his place in Georgian Parliament


VACANT SEAT IN THE PARLIAMENT OF GEORGIA CAUSED DISCUSSION AND
ACCUSATIONS OF INFRIDGEMENT OF MINORITY RIGHTS
 
Tbilisi, 5 December /BLACK SEA PRESS/. 

Decision to resign taken by the Georgian MP David Magradze, has become
a cause for new scandal in the parliament. David Magradze declared
that he saw no sense to continue his deputy's activities, and today a
discussion flared up among parliamentarians about who is to take over
Magradze's seat. 
 
David Magradze was elected to the parliament in 1999 on the list of
the "Georgia Citizens' Union" (GCU) party. Now the vacant seat must be
occupied by the next candidate from this list, and he is a resident of
Dmanisi district, ethnic Azeri Mikhael Makhmudov. However, it appeared
that still in March the CGU leadership signed an order about excluding
Mikhael Makhmudov from the list, as the chairman of the "Alliance for
New Georgia" faction Irakly Gogava stated today in the parliament.
According to him, this decision caused dissatisfaction of the
population of Dmanisi district, which is one of the centers of Azeri
conpact residence in Georgia. Accordign to Irakly Gogava, "public
unrest already began in Dmanisi", and he "already received some
phonecalls from Azerbaijan requesting to pay attention to thgis
problem".           

Irakly Gogava called the decision to exclude Mikhael Makhmudov from
the list "a big mistake" and assumed that this decision was taken at
the level of the GCU Secretary General Edward Surmanidze. Irakly
Gogava demanded immediate restoration of Mikhael Makhmudov on the GCU
list. 

In his turn, the parliament's vice-speaker Vakhtang Rcheulishvili
considers that the incident with the exclusion of Mikhael Makhmudov
from the list of candidates, has nothing to do with the infringement
of minority rights. In his view, just struggle frr MPs' votes takes
place in this case. According to Vakhtang Rcheulishvili, the Azeri MP
will certainly support the President's politics in the parliament,
while any other member of the GCU will support the position of the
former speaker Zurab Zhvania. Thus, the issue of the destiny of a
future GCU deputy so far remains open. 

(Translated from Russian by MINELRES)
-----------------


Azerbaijan: Church of St.George in Qah restored by Georgian community


The restoration of Church of St.George in Qah ends.
The restoration works were sponsored by the Georgians living in
Azerbaijan.

Echo newspaper, 05 Dec 2001


* * *
Azerbaycan Insan Huquqlarini Mudafie Merkezi
The Human Rights Center of Azerbaijan
P.O. Box 31, Baku 370000, Azerbaijan
Phone/fax +994-12-977026
E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]
http://members.tripod.de/hrca

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