Despite certain progress achieved by Georgia on anti-discrimination policies and legislation, hate speech and violence against some ethnic and religious minorities, as well as LGBT persons have increased over the past years, and the authorities’ response has not been sufficient.

The aforesaid is noted in the Council of Europe European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (CoE ECRI) report, which was made public on Tuesday, reported RFE/RL Armenian service.

The report, which sums up the developments in Georgia between 2010 and 2015, also addresses in considerable detail several unfortunate incidents involving Georgian Armenians and the Georgian Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Also, the report does not bypass the matter of disputable national belonging of several churches in Georgia. 

In addition, the CoE experts have received the respective observations by the Georgian government. In this connection, the matter of Armenian Apostolic Church’s legal status in Georgia became a subject of discussion.