NGO "Earth is Our Home" starts campaign to close Museum of Soviet Occupation in Tbilisi

The NGO "Earth is Our Home" launches an active campaign to demand closure of the Museum of Soviet Occupation in Tbilisi. This was stated by Elgudja Khodeli, the head of the NGO. The first action within the campaign took place in front of the Museum itself, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

The Museum of Soviet Occupation was established in 2006. The exhibition, which features 3000 items and materials, related to the period, when Georgia was the part of the Soviet Union, was fully launched on May 26, 2011. The Museum contains many archival documents, various movies, photo and video materials about the repressions of the Soviet period in Georgia. The walls of the Museum contain reports on interrogation of Georgian dissidents and orders of execution. The files with materials on dissidents themselves are available for public review. One of the rooms is specially equipped with large monitors, where a visitor can watch documentary films and video materials.

"We call on the Georgian government with the recommendation to close the Museum of Occupation and to direct the funds, allocated for its maintenance, to organization of such actions that will contribute to the strengthening of friendship between our two great nations," said Elgudja Khodeli at the press conference, held at the Tbilisi International Press Centre of the RIA "Novosti". He called the policy, implemented by the government of Mikhail Saakashvili, "an anti-Russian hysteria".

After the press conference, the members of the NGO went to the Museum of Soviet Occupation to hold the action in front of it. They were holding in their hands a poster reading: "Don't deprive us of our right to be friends with Russian people". The action was attended by about 15 persons, lasted for about an hour and passed without incidents.