• Human Rights in Georgia

    The October 2012 parliamentary elections marked Georgia’s first peaceful transition of power since independence. The opposition coalition, led by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, defeated President Mikheil Saakashvili’s party and gained a majority in parliament. The new government inherited troubling human rights problems, including little judicial independence and misuse of administrative (misdemeanor) charges to detain activists for minor infractions without having to follow full due process. Graphic video material, released in September 2012, depicts torture and ill-treatment of inmates, highlighting a long-standing problem of prisoner abuse. Rectifying past abuses and holding former government officials accountable without turning the process into political retribution is a serious challenge.   

  • World Report 2012: Georgia
    Georgia’s human rights record remained uneven in 2011. The government used excessive force to disperse anti-government protests in Tbilisi, the capital, in May, and prosecuted dozens in misdemeanor trials without full respect for due process rights. The authorities failed to effectively investigate these events and past instances of excessive use of force. Other concerns include restrictions on freedom of association and media, as well as forced evictions of internally displaced persons (IDPs) living in state-owned temporary housing.
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Georgia

  • Georgia: New Government Should Make Rights a Priority
    Jan 31, 2013
    Georgia’s new government needs to rectify the troubling human rights problems it inherited, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2013. In addressing past abuses, the government should avoid politically motivated prosecutions, ensure public scrutiny of its actions, and make the worst abuses a top priority.
  • Georgia: Misuse of Administrative Detention Violates Rights
    Sep 26, 2012
    Georgia’s use of administrative detention to lock up protesters and political activists violates the country’s international commitments to safeguard against arbitrary detention.
  • Georgia: Investigate Sexual Abuse in Prison
    Sep 19, 2012
    Video footage broadcast on Georgian television on September 18, 2012, depicts sexual and other abuse of inmates in a notorious prison in Georgia, which should be subject to criminal investigation.
  • The Soviet Fall and the Arab Spring
    Jan 10, 2012
    Twenty years ago, in July 1991, I was poised to start a job researching human rights violations in the Soviet Union. A month later, the failed coup to unseat Communist Party leader Mikhail Gorbachev precipitated rapid political changes that would lead to the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 25. Watching these events, my family told me I would no longer have a job. Like many others, they assumed that the end of communism would usher in a new era of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights in the Soviet Union’s successor states. I started my new job as planned and it only took five minutes to see that those assumptions were wrong.
  • Georgia: Flawed Misdemeanor System
    Jan 4, 2012
    Georgia’s system for handling administrative offenses, or misdemeanors, violates the defendant’s due process rights.
  • Abkhazia must raise its game on human rights
    Nov 20, 2011
    They like playing dominoes in Abkhazia. As dusk falls, young men unpack their pieces on the promenade by the Black Sea in Sukhumi, the picturesque capital of this breakaway territory bidding for independence from Georgia.
  • EU: Letter to EU Foreign Ministers and High Representative regarding Cooperation Councils with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia
    Nov 18, 2011
    We write in advance of the upcoming Cooperation Councils with Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia to urge you to ensure these meetings are used to raise concrete concerns in human rights, making clear that addressing them is of core importance to the EU and an essential component of the EU’s engagement with each country.
  • Send the Caucasus a Strong Message from Paris
    Oct 6, 2011
    Human rights need to be high on President Sarkozy’s agenda for his lightning-trip through the South Caucasus.
  • Georgia/Abkhazia: Back Home, but in Limbo
    Jul 15, 2011
    The rights of ethnic Georgian returnees to Abkhazia are hostage to nearly two decades of political conflict.
  • Georgia: Police Used Excessive Force on Peaceful Protests
    May 26, 2011
    Riot police in Georgian capital Tbilisi beat demonstrators while trying to disperse a peaceful anti-government protest.
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