Category: human rights

Saakashvili refuses to take responsibility for human rights abuses in Georgia

March 12, 2010 by georgiamedia

Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia's president, today tried to brush off serious American criticism of the country's human rights record by saying that the US State Department "critcises all countries" and pointing to the more positive comments in the report, released yesterday.

The report listed eleven types of "main human rights abuses" in Georgia:

• least one suspected death due to excessive use of force by law enforcement officers,
• politically motivated kidnappings and assaults,
• poor prison conditions,
• abuse of prisoners, including juveniles,
• arbitrary arrest and detention,
• politically motivated imprisonment,
• excessive use of force to disperse demonstrations,
• pressure that appeared politically motivated on owners of property,
• lack of due process,
• government pressure on the judiciary, and
• senior-level corruption in the government

It also listed several other types of abuse including a dimunition of media freedom, restrictions on media freedom and attacks on people and organisations because of their sexual orientation.

The high level of anxiety in the government about the report is shown by the fact that it has hardly received any media coverage - with the state-controlled and financed national media effectively imposing a black-out of the report, so therefore merely ramming home its points about a lack of media freedom and objective reporting. (The video here is from Maestro, a cable-television station in Tbilisi).

Georgian government tries to ignore human rights criticism

March 12, 2010 by georgiamedia

The Georgian government is attempting to avoid having to acknowledge the serious and extensive criticism of its human rights record in yesterday's US State Department Human Rights Report.

In their weekly propaganda news sheet "Georgia Update" the government make only one reference to the report - stating

The May 30 election marks the first time that Tbilisi’s mayor will be elected directly by city residents—a fact the US State Department called a “significant human rights achievement” in its annual human rights report, released today. The government has urged the international community to send monitors to observe the fairness of the election. Said President Saakashvili last week: “We want Georgia to become closer to Europe through these elections.”

Georgia's dismal human rights record laid bare by the US State Department

March 12, 2010 by georgiamedia

Yesterday evening, Georgian time, the US State Department published their human rights report for 2009 and the chapter for Georgia makes dismal reading.

The main human rights abuses reported during the year included at least one suspected death due to excessive use of force by law enforcement officers, politically motivated kidnappings and assaults, poor prison conditions, abuse of prisoners, including juveniles, arbitrary arrest and detention, politically motivated imprisonment, excessive use of force to disperse demonstrations, pressure that appeared politically motivated on owners of property, lack of due process, government pressure on the judiciary, and senior-level corruption in the government. Respect for media freedom declined, and there were cases of government interference with the rights of assembly and association. While three months of protests by the nonparliamentary opposition were generally held peacefully, there was a clear imbalance in protest-related incidents--crimes against government officials were investigated and solved quickly, while this was not the case for crimes committed against nonparliamentary opposition activists. There were some cases of restrictions on religious freedom and a lack of progress on such religious problems as the determination of ownership of disputed churches and the unequal status of non-Georgian Orthodox religions. Abuse of women and children, trafficking in persons, and societal discrimination and prejudice against persons based on their sexual orientation were also reported.

It is worth reading all of it - there is too much for us to do justice to it here, but looking at the "main human rights abuses"...

"excessive use of force" ... "abuse of prisoners"

Allegations of violence against state officials are investigated with speed. Allegations against state officials go nowhere:

 

 

In 2006 the Prosecutor General's Office opened an investigation to determine whether law enforcement agents acted in accordance with the law during a prison riot in Tbilisi Prison Number 5 that year. During the riot seven prisoners were killed and 22 injured; two Special Forces Task Force officers were wounded. According to information provided to the Public Defender's Office by the Office of the Prosecutor General, the investigation into the incident continued at year's end. Tbilisi Prison Number 5 was demolished in 2008.

 

The principal state official involved in this case was Bacho Akhalaia (pictured, left), who was made defence minister in 2009.

"politically motivated kidnappings and assaults"

On August 1, unidentified assailants attacked well-known karate and wrestling champion Amiran Bitsadze and his friend David Bendeliani. Bitsadze was a member of the nonparliamentary opposition party Democratic Movement-United Georgia (DMUG). The DMUG reported that Bitsadze and Bendeliani were driving in Tbilisi when they came across a minibus blocking the road. They reported that 15 to 18 masked assailants dragged them out of the car and beat them. Bendeliani was left on the street, but Bitsadze was taken away in a car. The DMUG said that Bitsadze was later found on a highway with two bullet-like wounds on his back, a broken leg, and a broken arm. The DMUG claimed that the wounds on Bitsadze's back came from rubber bullets similar to those the government used and that Bendeliani had described the vehicle as similar to those used by police special forces. The DMUG claimed that the motivation for the attack was Bitsadze's affiliation with the party. An investigation by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the ministry under which all police departments fall, was underway at year's end.

"politically motivated imprisonment"

During the year law enforcement officers reportedly planted drugs or weapons in order to arrest and charge individuals in a number of criminal cases, many of which were considered politically motivated. The following common factors were present in many of these cases: Charges were often only supported by police officer testimony; forensic or ballistic evidence to corroborate police testimony was typically not presented in these cases; and police commonly did not conduct searches with a warrant. While such additional evidence was not legally mandated, its absence, especially given allegations of political motivation, raised concerns among observers.

"excessive use of force to disperse demonstrations"

The public defender reported that on April 6, Versia newspaper journalists Ana Khavtasi and Nino Komakhidze were physically assaulted at an opposition protest rally in front of the Public Broadcaster's building. Law enforcement officials issued an order to rally participants to disperse. Ana Khavtasi was taking pictures as the policemen reportedly were beating the demonstrators. Allegedly, the police decided to take her camera away, but both journalists resisted. The police hit Khavtasi in the forehead and pulled Komakhidze's hair. The journalists managed to keep the camera and printed the photographs on the front page of Versia the following day. MPs condemned the incident. No investigation followed.

"pressure that appeared politically motivated on owners of property"

NGOs continued to report that police conducted searches, and may also have occasionally monitored private telephone conversations, without first obtaining court orders; police often obtained warrants after the fact. NGOs reported that most citizens were unaware of their right to delay a search of their home by one hour in order to summon two objective third-party witnesses to the search. The government stated that security police and tax authorities entered homes and workplaces without prior legal sanction. NGOs and some opposition members contended that the targeting of certain companies and persons for searches by tax authorities was politically motivated; they viewed subsequent fines as a form of "legal extortion" by the government. This practice was reported by businesses and persons across the political spectrum.

"lack of due process"

In 2007, according to HRW, restaurant owners in Tbilisi and a neighboring town complained that officials pressured them into handing over their property by threatening them with criminal charges for allegedly purchasing their property through corrupt business transactions during the Shevardnadze era. The government contended that these were cases of property with expired or ambiguous leases or obtained through fraudulent transactions or bribery linked to corruption. Domestic and international observers expressed concern that the government had not sufficiently respected due process and the rule of law. The public defender mentioned this concern in his December 2008 remarks to parliament. The current public defender did not include any new reports on these incidents in his last report, on the second half of the year.

"government pressure on the judiciary"

NGOs reported victims often did not report abuse, fearing police retribution against them or their families. NGOs also continued to claim that close ties between the Prosecutor General's Office and police hindered their ability to substantiate police misconduct and alleged that the judiciary's lack of professionalism and independence made it unresponsive to torture allegations. As a result, despite implementation of positive reforms, NGOs claimed law enforcement officials could still resort to torture or mistreatment with limited risk of exposure or punishment. NGOs also believed a lack of adequate training for law enforcement officers, as well as low public awareness of the protections afforded citizens, impeded improvements.

"senior-level corruption in the government"

The law provides criminal penalties for official corruption. While the government implemented these laws effectively against low-level corruption, which decreased as a result of high profile reforms led by the president, some NGOs alleged that senior-level officials engaged in corruption with impunity. The World Bank's worldwide governance indicators reflected that corruption was a serious problem.

There was a general consensus among public officials and civil society organizations that levels of petty corruption fell after the 2003 Rose Revolution. Only 2 percent of the respondents to Transparency International's Global Corruption Barometer, released on June 3, reported having to pay a bribe in the past year. Observers attributed the improvement to the detention of corrupt public officials, increases in public servants' salaries, and the simplification of administrative procedures.

In spite of this, high-level corruption remained a persistent concern, and observers considered the official anticorruption campaign too heavily focused on prosecution as opposed to prevention and too ad hoc rather than systemic and participatory in nature. Areas of concern included democratic institutions, civil society involvement in the planning and execution of public policy, property rights, and elite corruption.