The talk is about intimidating representatives of civil society; they have passed many laws restricting our activities, and now investigations have started against our work. Nevertheless, we will continue our activities and, first and foremost, protect our citizens, said Eka Gigauri, head of Transparency International, who was questioned today before a magistrate judge in the so-called sabotage case.
She spoke to journalists about the questions asked during her interrogation.
“First of all, the questions were about whether I personally helped the fined individuals. They brought information about transfers from my personal account to various accounts, the purpose of which was to cover the fines of the detainees. This seems to concern them the most. The second issue was my public statements that have been made over the past months, where I talk about the importance of sanctioning specific individuals involved in human rights violations, torture, and corruption, and that it is important for these people to be held accountable, not the citizens of Georgia. There were questions related to these statements, as well as, for example, a question about our campaign in solidarity with tortured detained citizens, and they had questions about that campaign. Also, it seems the problem was buying 7 or 8 diapers during the ongoing protests, and various such questions that I don’t know how they relate to the investigation they are conducting. Overall, it’s clear that the talk is about intimidating representatives of civil society; they have passed many laws restricting our activities, and now investigations have started against our work – we’ll see how it develops. We will still continue our activities and, first and foremost, protect our citizens.
I don’t know how far this process can go. I don’t rule out anything. Once again, I say – when it comes to harming the state, organizations don’t do this through transparent transfers, paying VAT, and invoices. All of this is very transparent. Our activities are transparent. All our statements are on our website. Our positions are recorded in statements, various reports, and our public talks. Accordingly, I think this is exactly the problem. The problem is that we talk about problems and once again fight for our country’s European future,” Gigauri stated.
Eka Gigauri: The questions were about whether I personally helped the fined individuals, and also, it seems, the problem was buying 7-8 diapers during the protests – the problem is that we talk about problems and fight for a European future
