Mandatory military service and 'fictional' priests in Georgia

Georgia's defence code is stamping out loopholes that young Georgians use to get out of military service, as rights activists in the country warn that new amendments to the code could lead to discrimination against religious minorities. This week, we spoke to a Georgian student about why he chose to evade conscription, to Ioseb Edisherashvili from the Georgian Young Lawyers Association about the controversy surrounding the defence code, and to Giorgi Shaishmelashvili,  the Head of Research at Civic IDEA, about what the code was intended to achieve, and what it has done instead. Read more: Georgia closes loopholes to defer military service Become a supporter at oc-media.org/support_us, or on Patreon.