E/CN.4/2004/63/Add.1 page 12 50. The Special Rapporteur was unable to obtain precise information about the situation of the Anglicans, who were unable to attend the meeting he had with the other communities in the association. 51. The Baptists, who number around 5,000, appear to be the member community that has come in for most religious intolerance in Georgia. The most notable event occurred on 3 February 2002, when Basil Mkalavishvili and 150 of his sympathizers seized a warehouse where Baptist literature was stored and set fire to thousands of bibles and other religious works. The incident was filmed and broadcast by a television channel. 52. The Baptists have also been prevented from making prison visits as they are accustomed to do at certain periods of the year; they regard this as another undesirable consequence of the constitutional agreement, under which the prison authorities are bound by the Orthodox Church’s refusal to allow visits by representatives of other faiths. 3. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Pentecostalists, Word of Life Church 53. Besides the communities above, there are a number of other, small religious communities which suffer religious intolerance. They are all the more vulnerable for being small and little-known and, hence, readily categorized as “sects”. 54. The community of Jehovah’s Witnesses, present in the country since 1953 but with a relatively limited membership (estimates put it at 15,000), has without question been the target of the most acts of intolerance and religious violence. Since October 1999, it has been subjected to 144 attacks and other incidents. Most of the attacks are said to have been led by Basil Mkalavishvili, an unfrocked Orthodox Church priest. Since the attacks started, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have been unable to assemble in large numbers although this is one of the distinctive features of their community. What is more, they have on several occasions been denied permission to rent a hall for their gatherings for reasons to do with their religious beliefs. 55. The Special Rapporteur also notes that a number of incidents which have had the effect of limiting or violating the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ freedom of religion were provoked by the forces of law and order or other local authorities. On two occasions, for example, the customs authorities held back cargoes of religious literature belonging to Jehovah’s Witnesses. 56. More significantly, in 1999 the member of Parliament and President of the “Georgia Above All” party, Guram Sharadze, brought proceedings before the Georgian courts seeking the dissolution pursuant to article 31 of the Civil Code of two legal entities registered by Jehovah’s Witnesses, on the grounds that no religion can be granted registration. On 26 June 2000, the Court of Appeal in T’bilisi found partly in Sharadze’s favour and the community of Jehovah’s Witnesses took the case to the Supreme Court. On 22 February 2001, the Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeal’s ruling, finding that the law under which cults should be registered in public law did not yet exist and that the Jehovah’s Witnesses could not be registered in another guise, although some 15 or so associations that engage in cult activities are registered in Georgia. In the face of the violent criticism that this decision aroused, the Supreme Court officially clarified its position, explaining that cancelling the registration of Jehovah’s Witness associations would have no effect on Jehovah’s Witnesses’ exercise of their freedom of religion.