Web Portal on Human Rights in Georgia

Pupils of public schools in two districts of Kvemo Kartli Region will learn Georgian History and Geography in state language. The project is implemented with the support of UNICEF and will cover 89 schools with 2100 pupils. Maya Kurtsikidze, Communication officer of the UNICEF spoke about the project and its implementation with the Human Rights Center.

Tsignagi Branch for the Ivane Djavakhishvili State University is going to be closed. The reorganization has already started in the high school. After the reform, it will become a vocational institute. The students of the first, second and third year might be forced out without diplomas. They have already been offered to move to other high schools, but the young people refuse to go anywhere. The students say they will hold protest demonstrations.

Thirty-three IDP families are awaiting June 1 in fear. They currently reside in a building of former Society for Deaf and Dumb in Griboedov Street in Zugdidi. Nowadays, these families might have to stay in the street. They have lived in the building since 1998 according to the resolution of the Ministry of Refugees and Accommodation. The IDPs claim that the building was in poor conditions when they moved in and had to repair it at their own expense.

Having harassed independent media sources, law enforcement bodies began attacking the NGOs in Kakheti region. Two days ago, the Telavi District Prosecutor’s Office arrested Imeda Lazariashvili, one of the coordinators for the local office of the “Center for Strategic Research and Development”. The Prosecutor’s Office blames the twenty-year-old graduate student for protecting the robbers. The non-governmental sector calls the situation urgent and urges the international organizations for help.

The Mtkvari River flows close to the village of Skra. Generally, there is a good view in the area, but when it rises then the village is threatened. The Mtkvari has altered its bed and now is destroying the river bank. The population has been demanding to repair the dam in vain.

When you turn to the Saakadze Street in Akhaltsikhe you immediately notice a dismantled car and a lot of children around it. You will think they help the car-repairer just for fun. But you are mistaken, the repairer is Mkhitar Kerofian and the boys are his sons. The couple, Lala and Mkhitar Kerofian, has nine children. The monthly income of the family is too little.

Students of the Gori Multi-Discipline Small Academy oppose the Credit Union. The members of the Academy’s self-government demand their rights protected who have enrolled the Credit Union. The reason for enrollment sounded too challenging for them, the union offered them one- percent loan in exchange for educational fee.

“Kutaisi local Authority cannot stand street traders. It is the only explanation of their attitude towards us. We are standing in the rain, wind, heat and try to sell a little green to earn our living and keep our families. But they do their best to cut our last source to survive. We do not know how long we will endure the situation,” said street traders in the area of Kutaisi Central Market.

Last night, Chechen refugees left the area in front of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) where they had camped down recently. They left the area after having reached some agreements with law enforcers. According to one of Chechen refugee, they had made some verbal agreement with law enforcers and decided to leave the area. Besides that, the refugees received an official notification from the UNHCR that they would receive an official reply to their demand to resettle to a third country within a week. Refugees stayed in Tbilisi and are waiting for the reply from the UNHCR.

Chechen refuges from Pankisi Gorge have been holding protest demonstrations in the yard of the UN High Commissioner’s office in Kazbegi Street # 2. Seven families with thirty people demand the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to draw their attention to their problems and do not intend to stop demonstration.

Maintaining the gender balance in the Caucasian families is still a problem in the XXI Century. In Georgia women and men do not have equal rights yet and women are related with only housewives, low circles and poorly-paid jobs. Non-governmental organizations argue with the government on the topic and demand to enact right policy in treating the women.

Forester of Abi Wood in the Akhaltsikhe District discovered jeans, leather waistcoat, military boots and bones in the seven-kilometers-deep gap when he was doing his every-day round-wood-raid. The dead person turned up Daniel Aghlemashvili, a soldier who disappeared on March 9 after the incident caused by collecting of the money in the unit. The father, Isoeb Aghlemashvili, recognized the civil clothes of his son. The expertise is going on too. Since the incident happened in the unit, the fuss of the parents has turned into a fear.

Seventy-one-year-old Suliko Khurtsidze worked at the Kutaisi Hydro Meteorological Observatory for 29 years. He acted as a director for the Observatory for the last ten years. In the middle of December in 2005, employees of the observatory were told to sign resignation letters because tests were going to be held. In fact, no examinations were held at all.

Houses and cattle sheds have moved two meters, plots have flooded, a landslide and the people who lived in danger of it are now a reality in the district. The population expects the local government to help them, and the local authority waits for the central government. The government shares responsibility, and the money for compensation is on its way. Nonetheless, the number of people injured by landslides and floods in Adigeni district increases each year.

A man whose total property are two chairs, two iron beds and one old TV, could not be enrolled the program for socially excluded people. He does not have his own house and rents a flat. He has petitioned to the government for a shelter and for including him in the program. However, the correspondence did not have any results. Homeless man applied to the Human Rights Center for help.

Graduate students of the Zugdidi Branch of the Tbilisi Ivane Javakhishvili State University (TSU); have not received their diplomas yet. Hundreds of students have been waiting for their diplomas for a year. Many of them have faced various problems when they wanted to go on with their studying, or to take internship courses or to get employed. Employers demand diplomas from young people.

Telavi District Court found Besik Mrelashviil guilty for killing twenty-year-old Giga Charbadze in a car-accident. Mrelashvili was a patrol policeman at the Internal Ministry. The judge Marika Tsertsvadze sentenced the accused to seven-year-old imprisonment and bailiffs detained him in the court room. The lawyer for the accused blames the court for partiality because he was not allowed to defend his client.

On March 3, Archil Surameli and his close relative, Zurab Djanelzashvili, were detained for thievery. They were blamed for having stolen plastic frames of billboards in Gori. Both of them own certificates from the Gori Psycho-Neurological Dispensary. Archil Surameli has “mental disability, slight behavioral pathology on moronity level”; as for Djanezashvili, he complaints of “psychic nervousness accompanied with organic hallucinations caused by injury and dysfunction of the brain.”

Argument between sixty-nine-year-old Omar Bachiashvili, a resident of Akhmeta, and the US Government has lasted for eight years already. Bachaishvili demanded 9 000 USD from the US Government because he claimed it was the pension of his late father. Although he received a part of the sum, he is now demanded to return part of the amount back. The Georgian citizen is about to go on with the argument in the USA.

Fourteen people were injured during an incident between Caucasian Avars in Kvareli. Several women are among them. Two men with grave health conditions were placed in the Gurjaani District Hospital. The population blames the family of MP Marika Verulashvili for protecting Shamil Gazimagamedov leader of armed formation. People threaten with vengeance and bloody demand unless criminals are punished severely.