E/CN.4/2004/63/Add.1 page 13 57. The Special Rapporteur has also been informed that Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are normally conscientious objectors, are no longer having problems with military service and win exemption fairly easily if they perform alternative, civilian service. 58. The Pentecostalists, who number roughly 5,000 in Georgia, are also often persecuted; their situation has been deteriorating slowly over the past four years, to the point where they now face substantial difficulties in assembling to practise their religion. On several occasions they have been prevented from gathering by unidentified individuals accompanied by Orthodox priests, and the priests have sometimes entered the buildings where services were taking place to strike worshippers or tear up Gospels. 59. The Word of Life Church and the Assembly of God are churches associated with the Pentecostalists. The Word of Life Church was founded in Georgia roughly seven years ago and today consists of about 600 members who meet on the premises of the Georgian Pentecostalist Church. These members have been subjected to religious violence on a number of occasions. On 22 December 2001, for example, they were attacked by Basil Mkalavishvili and his associates, who beat them up and smashed property. Members of the Word of Life Church have also been the subject of offensive and slanderous articles in the Georgian press. 60. Other religious and faith-based communities suffer less persecution, either because they are very small or because they are little-known. These include the Baha’is, who arrived in Georgia recently and number approximately 1,500. Generally speaking, the Baha’i community is able to operate without hindrance and is developing without problems. The Baha’is, who are registered as a civil, not religious, association, are currently building a new centre for the community and have had no problem doing so. They do report having had some problems with the customs authorities. VI. INTOLERANCE AND RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE, AND REACTIONS BY THE GEORGIAN AUTHORITIES 61. The main source of concern as far as freedom of religion or belief in Georgia is concerned is certainly the frequency and extent of the persecution to which many of the religious minorities established in Georgia are subject. Generally speaking, and leaving aside some informants who mentioned incidents involving religious minorities going back to the early 1990s, it would appear that acts of intolerance and religious violence really began in 1999 and have grown more serious and diverse since. 62. A recent document offers a fairly good illustration of the situation as regards freedom of religion or belief in Georgia. On 24 January 2003, representatives of the Orthodox and other Christian churches came together in the Baptist Church in T’bilisi for an ecumenical service. In a joint letter to the President of the Republic, the church representatives present described what then took place as follows: When all the bishops, clergymen, the faithful, representatives of different layers of our society and representatives of embassies accredited in T’bilisi started to gather at the Cathedral Baptist Church, they were attacked by a well-organized group of hooligans led by Basil Mkalavishvili. They physically and verbally insulted clergymen [and] the faithful. They penetrated the church building and raided the sanctuary. They tore