Occupant Regime Bans the Georgian Language in Akhalgori Kindergarten
By Tea Mariamidze
Tuesday, September 4
Locals from Georgia’s Akhalgori region, which has been under the de facto Tskhinvali regime since the Georgia-Russia August 2008 war, are concerned by the decision of the occupation regime which banned the Georgian language in the kindergarten.
The new rules of the kindergarten have been set up by the new director, who forbade the use of the Georgian language among the children, teachers and their parents inside the building.
The information was released by the media outlet Ekho Kavkaza, which reports that in the new kindergarten, recently opened by the so-called President of breakaway South Ossetia, Anatoly Bibilov, a new director Alla Gussoyeva, a graduate of the occupied South Ossetian State University without pedagogical and leadership experience, does not let kindergarten children and staff communicate in Georgian.
As the article reads, the new principal distributed Georgian children into different groups to restrict their use of the Georgian language.
Ethnic Georgians, as well as ethnic Ossetians, are enrolled in the kindergarten. According to Ekho Kavkaza, during the games, children speak Georgian. For such behavior, the director gives strict remarks to the parents of the children.
According to the article, civil activist Tamar Mearakishvili from Akhalgori has also heard about such restrictions.
"People are outraged and at the same time surprised, because, for ten years under the jurisdiction of de facto Tskhinvali, such a fact has never happened… The Constitution guarantees the people of South Ossetia to communicate in their native language, in this case, Georgian,” she stressed.
Mearakishvili noted that even some officials from the occupied leadership communicate with the locals in Georgian.
“It is unclear for us why the new director introduced such restrictions,” she added.
Georgia’s breakaway regions – South Ossetia and Abkhazia fell under the Russian occupation after 2008 August war. Since then, only Russia, Nauru, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Syria recognize these regions as independent states. All the rest of the international community says they are integral parts of Georgia.
