Civil society organizations are worried about the treatment of 16 people who were detained in Tbilisi and Batumi. They also expressed concern about the dismissal of public servants.
Some of these individuals were kept in jail despite not having enough evidence to justify their imprisonment, according to Transparency International – Georgia’s Executive Director Eka Gigauri. She stated that prosecutors did not have sufficient reasons for keeping people in custody and that judges took a stance before the hearings, which is against the law.
The court proceedings also had some other problems: the hearing rooms were crowded, making it difficult for lawyers and defendants to communicate; the judge was aware of this issue but didn’t fix it. Gigauri also said that arrested individuals in Batumi were not allowed to see a lawyer right away and faced physical and verbal abuse.
Mzia Amaghlobeli, director of the newspaper Batumelebi/Netgazeti, had her rights violated and materials about her case were sent to over 20 international organizations dedicated to protecting journalists’ rights.
The founder of the civic platform ‘Georgia’s European Orbit’, Nino Lomjaria, spoke out against ongoing repressions in Georgia’s public service. She said that dozens of civil servants have been dismissed on political grounds, despite the fact that they were let go because their contracts expired.
Lomjaria stated that CSOs are working together to reveal a list of individuals involved in “political persecution” of civil servants and provided a list of government bodies where these changes have already taken place.
Pro-European protests erupted after Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze’s decision to halt the country’s EU integration efforts.
