From Dmanisi: First of all, an equal civil society must be formed ...

Baku/17.05.21/Turan: "Conflicts with national minorities regularly occur in Georgia, and such an event as a social issue subsequently turns into an ethnic conflict, which has its own reasons." This is how the human rights activist and public activist of this country Samira Bayramova commented on the ongoing confrontation between the Svans and Azerbaijanis in the Dmanisi region of Georgia in the program "Difficult Question".

She noted that the reason for the current confrontation is that the Svans buy food in the shops used by Azerbaijanis and do not give money. Such cases are repeated many times, and as a result, it turns into a massive conflict.

According to her, despite the fact that the conflict has been going on for two days, the police do not intervene in the events to stop the conflict, takes a contemplative position, which leads to arbitrariness.

The public activist emphasizes that the police want to resolve the conflict by stopping the parties, but this is not the way to solve the problem.

“Until someone is punished for arbitrariness, the issue will not be resolved,” says Bayramova.

He adds that state structures also remained in the role of observers of these events, and even the Ministry of Integration did not express their attitude to the conflict.

In her opinion, one of the main problems is Georgia's lag behind democratic reforms, the strengthening of authoritarian values ​​in recent years.

Russian propaganda also plays an important role in this situation, Bayramova said.

Bayramova says that the Svans did not live in Dmanisi from the very beginning, they were resettled to these territories as a result of the Abkhaz conflict, as well as after 5-6 villages were resettled from the mountains of Svaneti to Dmanisi after a devastating flood.

According to her, the deterioration of the social situation also affects the emergence of such conflicts. So, before the pandemic, the main source of income for Georgia was tourism; for more than a year, due to the pandemic, these incomes of Georgia have been severely affected.

She believes that the way out of this situation is  not in confrontation with ethnic groups, but in creating an equal society for all citizens. Also, in order to prevent violations of the rights of a citizen, the state must demonstrate strength to prevent violations of laws and legality.-05B-