At least a dozen activists were attacked and beaten in the last few days, indicating an extremely alarming human rights situation, Sozar Subari, the Georgian Public Defender, said on June 4.
He said that all 12 victims, including one woman, were opponents of the authorities and it would be “turning a blind eye on the truth to think they were ordinary criminal acts.”
Subari also suggested that the number of attacks was higher than the 12 reported, saying many victims of attacks and intimidation refused to officially speak out “because of fear.”
In a tough worded statement, Subari said the violation of human rights by the authorities had taken “a systematic pattern.”
“The major goal of these deliberate attacks on people critically disposed towards the authorities is not simply to punish them, but to terrorize the entire population,” Subari said. “Human rights protection and freedom – these are two values which our society suffers a deficit of. This deficit has become even more obvious since the May 21 parliamentary elections.”
Shota Khizanishvili, an Interior Ministry spokesman, told Civil.Ge, on June 4 that investigations were ongoing into the reported cases.
Subari, however, said “political will is needed to investigate these cases.”
“In fact there is no problem to investigate these cases, just as it is easy to investigate the events which took place on November 7,” Subari said, referring to many regard as the excessive use of force by riot police in breaking up a protest rally, as well as the raid on and destruction of the premises and equipment of Imedi television station last year.
The Public Defender also said that the situation was becoming even more alarming with, what he called, deteriorating condition of freedom of media.
He also said that he was continously raising these issues with international organizations and foreign diplomats working in Tbilisi.
Subari said he he expressed his “complaints especially to those countries which are the biggest friends of Georgia.”
“Because very often for the sake of that friendship they turn a blind eye on those wrongdoings which are taking place in this country. But such an approach has in the end negative consequences on the development of democracy in our country. Such an approach from our friends is in fact a disservice to our country,” Subari said.
“First of all I mean some of those, I think, hasty assessments, which were made after the elections, saying that these were free and fair elections in full compliance of the democratic standards and that Georgia has passed test in democracy and also saying that it was better election than the presidential one,” Subari said. “At the same time not all the assessments were definitely positive. [Preliminary] conclusions by the OSCE/ODIHR-led international observation mission were quite strict. And the U.S. Department of States has directly called on the Georgian authorities to investigate all the allegations on [electoral] violations and to address the shortcomings revealed by the local and international observers. Assessments of this type give us hope, that sooner or later all the violations will be investigated.”
He also said that his office was preparing a report on election-related violations, which would be available in the next few days. “What I can say for now is that there were numerous cases of intimidation and pressure on observers,” the Public Defender said.