Repatriation of Muslim Georgians: Mission Accomplished?

This article focuses on the repatriation process for Muslim Meskhetians deported from Soviet Georgia. It describes the repatriation process initiated after the collapse of the communist regime, showcasing the links between these efforts and Georgia’s request for membership in the Council of Europe i...

Description complète

Enregistré dans:  
Détails bibliographiques
Auteur principal: Dolidze, Anna (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
Vérifier la disponibilité: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
En cours de chargement...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Publié: MDPI 2023
Dans: Religions
Année: 2023, Volume: 14, Numéro: 7
Sujets non-standardisés:B Meskhetians
B Repatriation
B Georgia
B Soviet Union
B Muslim
Accès en ligne: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Volltext (kostenfrei)
Description
Résumé:This article focuses on the repatriation process for Muslim Meskhetians deported from Soviet Georgia. It describes the repatriation process initiated after the collapse of the communist regime, showcasing the links between these efforts and Georgia’s request for membership in the Council of Europe in 1996. The article finds that the Georgian government had a superficial approach to repatriation, and several factors hindered repatriation, including the difficulty in disseminating the information related to the application requirements, which were not made accessible in the languages in which the applicants were fluent. Moreover, as Georgia allowed dual citizenship only in exceptional circumstances, the applicants had to renounce their original citizenship to be allowed to seek citizenship in Georgia. Some of them were hesitant to do so, a position that represented an obstacle to application. The most significant impediment was the lack of objectively defined criteria for repatriation success. Without detailed criteria as to what amounted to proper repatriation, the degree of the success of the process is hard to assess. The international community has departed from approaching repatriation as a formal return process. The concept has assumed a “thicker” meaning of allowing returned individuals to resume their lives in the fullest sense, including assuming citizenship, return property etc. The case study shows that the Georgian case of repatriation has been formalistic. Full and seamless reinstatement of the deported people in their lives did not take place.
ISSN:2077-1444
Contient:Enthalten in: Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.3390/rel14070939