The Pankisi Valley’s Kist Muslim community has lost more than its classes: the centres that taught its children and women are now losing their buildings too. According to SOVA, an independent Russian-language outlet in Georgia, Jokolo Educational Centre director Iza Bekauri said on October 6 that Akhmeta’s city hall had refused to renew the lease and sent an official letter ordering the organisation out, forcing it to remove its equipment.
The Kists are Sunni Muslims of Chechen and Ingush descent who came down from the Caucasus mountains in the 19th century and settled in this narrow valley in Georgia’s Kakheti region. The Second Chechen War brought thousands of refugees, and the small community has since lived with a recurring media label as a “hotbed of extremism.”
Why the Pankisi Valley Centres Closed
According to Georgia Online, the Kakheti Regional Development Fund announced on February 17 that its centres in Duisi, Jokolo and Koreti would close. It said it could not extend the leases and that changes in Georgian legislation had made donor support harder to obtain. The centres employed 20 local women, it said, and had prepared thousands of young people for national exams free of charge.
SOVA reported that activities stopped on February 28 as the new legislation took effect, but staff had hoped to keep the building until circumstances changed.
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“I Will Not Leave Pankisi”
Bekauri said more than 150 students a year learned English and computer skills at Jokolo, and women gained vocational training. SOVA said students from 17 villages studied Georgian, history, mathematics and other subjects there for free. Bekauri believes the decision targets her personally rather than the organisation, and she firmly denied any anti-state activity. “I will vacate the building, but that does not mean you will drive me out of Pankisi,” she said. “My mother is buried in Pankisi.”
Sources: SOVA News, Georgia Online
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