Special Statement of Human Rights Center – Stop Spying and Oppression against Human Rights Defenders!

Human Rights Center is alarmed by the sharp decrease of quality of democratic freedoms in Georgia caused by the adoption of extremely repressive legislation and pressure against the independent civil institutions.

For the last several years the Human Rights Center has been attacked by different government officials numerous times. The policemen visited the Center office several times, threatened the employees, and assaulted them verbally and physically. The facts of the pressure against the coordinator of Shida Kartli office Saba Tsitsikashvili and Kakheti coordinator Gela Mtivlishvili have still not been investigated. In many cases the government promoted and encouraged the assaulters.

The Sorry Campaign initiated by the Human Rights Center was looked down by the high officials of government who offered militarist hysteria to Abkhaz and Ossetian people instead of dialogue. The Center has been assaulted numerous times regarding this campaign, including – by the President.

Numerous incidents have taken place with the direct and indirect participation of government representatives. The Center has been cast away from important public processes. This continues until today. The Center lawyers have been cast away from important cases and by the requests of law-enforcements structures, have been given aversion at numerous times. There have been cases when the Center employees have been offered to move to high governmental posts with the perspective of high payment. Some of the employees were advised to refrain from activity “in a friendly way.”
For last several months the Center representatives have been systematically spied on. Numerous cars have been observed near the office, the house and on the streets. The Center has observed the cases when the spying car changed its state license plates. The spying took place by different cars which transported by the same state license place at different times that is already a violation.

The Center also found out that the high governmental officials are personally involved in the discrediting of the civil society. They assure to the foreign guests in the private conversations that the Georgian civil society cooperates with the Russian Intelligence Service. They are told that Russia is so strong that it pressures the diplomats through Georgian public organizations. The case of photo reporters appears to be a first circle of the chain and it is planned to “convict” the representatives of civil society by attacking several uncontrolled organizations. This becomes especially relevant before the Parliamentary and Presidential elections.

Human Rights Center considers that in the nearest future the aggressive pressure against the independent media outlets and NGOs will not have serious opponent during the pre-election campaign and the putinization of the government will take place – to transfer authority to the Prime Minister without hindrance.

The Center requests the government to stop total spying and spy mania against the civil society. Instead of searching spies in the civil sector, the government should try to solve the socio-economic and other problems crucial for Georgian population.

We request to stop the intimidation of public by police force, disruption of peaceful demonstrations, political repressions, pressure against media, detention of photo reports with absurd charges and oppression against civil sector.