Zone deprived of rights (Collection of materials describing the cases of violation of fundamental human rights and freedoms in Georgia) 1 2 The book is based on the materials from the Ombudsman’s annual report, as well as on the facts uncovered by various human rights organizations and independent journalistic investigations. Zone deprived of rights (Collection of materials describing the cases of violation of fundamental human rights and freedoms in Georgia) Publisher: “Isrotiuli Memkvidreoba” (“Historical Heritage”) Tbilisi, 2009 3 4 Foreword Facade democracy – is the major problem in Georgia. Beyond this facade multitude of citizens deprived of their values and rights, disrespected and in- timidated live, are imprisoned, or merely buried... This is visibly proved by the words of the journalist Stephan Scholl from Frankfurter Rundschau: “Europe has an idealized picture of what is happen- ing here. I have been in Georgia for a few days and I have such an impression that there is a two-storey Georgia. The first floor Georgia is displayed to for- eigners, the representatives of the western governments. Everything is superb here... However, I happened to go up to the second floor Georgia too and the real- ity here is completely different. I met the people whose children despite the lack of evidence were charged for murder and sentenced to many - more than thirty - years of imprisonment... I met those people and they are rather scared, scared to give even their names. Plea bargaining is rampant here and, if you have money, this issues could be solved... it is odd... Hence, the situation is not as perfect as it seems from the first floor.” The book we are offering tells about “the second-floor” Georgia. You will find multitude examples of egregious and obvious violation of human rights: the facts provided by the Ombudsman’s Office, materials of journalistic inves- tigations and various publications that appeared in the press at various times. Violence, murder, tortures, humiliation of citizens, lawlessness, prosperity of tyranny – this is the horrifying truth about Georgia proclaimed as a Light- house of Democracy. No lighthouse or candlelight is required to see and perceive what tragedy is being unfolded here. The tragedy calls for removal of the democratic facade and change of mise- en-scenes. And that has to be done jointly. 5 Persecution of political opponents In the last 3-4 years several political parties were united as opposition of the present-day Georgian authorities. One of the declared reasons for moving to opposition was gross human rights violations, which became a rule for officials at different levels and the whole government agencies. In June, 2008 the united opposition planned to hold a rally in front of the Parliament Building in order to express its attitude towards the Parliament elected on May 21, 2008. With the beginning of rallies, physical abuse of the activists of was started. After several celebrated cases of serious bodily assaults, formal investigations had been initiated concerning the facts of assault on the activists of political opposition, although no one has been in regard to every assault on the active members of the political opposition; however, no one was brought to responsibility so far. Such practice of punishment of the opponents of the authorities was tested before. In October, 2007 the then opposition parliament members - Bezhan Gunava and Bidzina Gudjabidze were assaulted and beaten bru- tally in the city of Zugdidi. The names of the assaulters are well known to everyone, including the representatives of law enforcement bodies. They are activists of the ruling “National Movement” - Giorgi Samushia, Goga Ghurtskaia, Manuchar Putkaradze, Giorgi Mania, Irakli Mikaia, Bik- tor Mikaia and Akaki Rogava. Beating and serious bodily assaults of the opposition parliament members was considered by the Zugdidi Regional Court as actions of administrative and legal qualification. Due to rather leniency of the patrol-inspectors, who drew the report and Zugdidi District Court, it is impossible to charge the above-mentioned persons with crimi- nal responsibility for the action they had been recognized as perpetrators (Principle of Ne bis in idem recognized by paragraph 4 of Amendment VII of the European Convention of Human Rights ). No one intended to pun- ish the participants of the assault on Bezhan Gunava and Bidzina Gu- jabidze, moreover, they were encouraged. This becomes even more obvious, when we look through the proportional election list of the “National Movement”. The list is uploaded on the website of the cen- tral Election Commission. Goga Ghurtskaia’s name could be found in the election list of the election subject – “United National Movement – For Victorious Georgia”. The date of birth - December 21 1982, activity – Chief Specialist at Zugdidi Municipality Council. This is exactly the 6 Shalva Ogbaidze same Goga Ghurtskaia, who was recognized as an administrative law breaker by the decision of Judge Davit Kekenadze at Zugdidi District Court on October 29 2007 and sentenced to 20 days of imprisonment and imposed the fine worth of four hundred laris. The violence applied by Goga Ghurtskaia against Bezhan Gunava had been depicted by TV chan- nel “Rustavi-2” and “Imedi”. Under the number 91 in the same proportional list one can find Isako Tskipurishvili. In November, 2007 he was threatening to smash up an independent radio station in Lagodekhi for critical reportages. The audio-recording of this evidence is available. Annual Report of the State Department of the USA concerning the status of the human rights worldwide in 2007 says: “Certain members of the political opposition in Georgia were subject to political violence. There were reports that politically active people not belonging to the ruling party experienced problems connected with the persecution and charges in corruption”. Irakli Okruashvili, once a powerful person, particularly close to the Pres- ident Saakashvili, former Prosecutor General, Minister of Internal Affairs and Minister of Defense of the country was provided with political asylum in France. Despite the fact that Okruashvili is an odious man and his activ- ities at different political offices are quite diverse, his persecution started only after he showed up on television charging authorities and Saakashvili personally. Soon he was given a custodial sentence and after emerging from 7 jail immigrated to Paris. Based on these circumstances, we could straight- forwardly state that in September-October 2007, the Defense Minister was under political imprisonment. Criminal persecution against ex-Defense Minister was motivated by the announcements made on air of the TV chan- nel “Imedi”. Later the problems with the authorities arose not only in re- gard to Irakli Okruashvili, but his relatives and friends too. After it was openly announced that Irakli Okruashvili established a political party, the Financial Police started to examine enterprises that belonged to Irakli Okru- ashvili’s closest friend – Kibar Khalvashi. The agreements on governmen- tal procurement signed by him had been re-examined. Along with Irakli Okruashvili, Mikheil Kareli – former Governor/Trustee of Shida Kartli, Marlen Nadiradze - ex-chairman of Gori Municipality Council –and others were detained on charges of corruption. Irakli Okruashvili’s mother Zhana Giguashvili was unexpectedly dismissed from her job. The Ombudsman’s report of the second half of 2007 also denoted dismissal of the sister of Okruashvili’s party member and parliamentary deputy – Teo Tlashadze and the relative of the former Minister of Defense – Nana Mgebrishvili. Political persecution against the persons having oppositional opinions was expressed in the following: the pedagogues at educational institutions were dismissed under cover-up or threatened to be dismissed due to their political opinions; active members of political opposition were assaulted and physically intimidated, as well as shadowed. Unusual measure of psy- chological pressure on the political choice of a person is to enforce him/her to make an oath on the icon, and if an employee refused to do that, she/he was dismissed from the job. All the actions committed against the active members of the opposition parties were connected with the Parliamentary elections of May 21, 2008. We can talk about the political motive of the authorities in regard to the criminal case of Merab Ratishvili and Ioseb Jandieri. In return for Merab Ratishvili’ release, they required pro- viding information on the leaders of the political opposition from him. An active participant of the actions on November 7, 2007* Ioseb Jand- ieri was quite close with the persons on key positions in the authorities. In spite of that, he made a speech at the meeting on November 7, 2007 that was assessed as a treachery and he was got square with. The fol- lowing type of political imprisonment is also very common: a person is incriminated in a bureaucratic crime. As evidence in such a case is ___________________________ * in what follows - On November 07, 2007 a massive protest rally was held in Tbilisi. In accordance with some estimations, about 200.000 thousand people participated in the rally, which was broke up by authorities with special cruelty, among other things, by use of rubber truncheons, teargas and so called “acoustic cannon” used by US forces in Iraq. 8 used either the documents that allegedly were signed by the incrimi- nated person but his signature does not exist on the documents or the method of basing the resolution on such a circumstance that has not arisen by the fault of the person who is under the prosecution (see the case of Dimitri Godabrelidze). The majority of the people who consider themselves as political prisoners, have been imposed the criminal responsi- bility due to illegal turnover of drugs. It is a rarity in the world practice, when the law prohibits the political activities due to which a person was imprisoned. The Soviet Union was an exception.