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Statement of the Human Rights Center - Who Else Is Responsible for the Situation in Georgian Penitentiary System?

September 28, 2012

As we all know, after the recent incidents in Georgian penitentiary system and public pressure, the Minister of Interior and Minister of Corrections and Legal Aid of Georgia assumed responsibility and resigned.

Unfortunately, the Minister of Justice, Chief Prosecutor and other senior governmental officials have not admitted their political responsibility. None of the senior officials, who bear the direct responsibility of what has been happening in  the penitentiary system, have been punished for the serious human rights violations they committed or encouraged.

Over the past few years the government had been denying existence of torture in the country. Unfortunately, both Georgian Public Defender’s Office, and a number of local and international organizations, as well as the donor organizations were victimized by this propaganda. The governmental strategy and action plan against ill-treatment, which was adopted in secret from the civil society, also denied the existence of torture and focused only on ill-treatment.

We share pathos of the Public Defender’s critical reports and his successful activities on various issues.  We cooperated with the PDO on various issues but it is also noteworthy that the term “torture” completely disappeared from the Ombudsman’s reports and it was replaced by “ill or inhuman treatment.” Several nongovernmental organizations (both national and international NGOs) also used this term and it contributed to the impunity and worsened the problem.

Unfortunately, Public Defender has never admitted his responsibility for failing to prevent the torture cases. It was within the duties of his office to be first to reveal the grave human rights violations in the Georgian police and penitentiary system. Although one could evaluate the activities of the Public Defender Office positively in other aspects of its work, but when it comes to prevention of torture, we believe it was a failure.

Hence several immediate problems must be resolved in order to ensure adequate functioning of the PDO institution. Firstly, the National Prevention Mechanisms should be re-assessed and re-established to endure its full compliance with the OPCAT provisions, including the membership of independent professional human rights organizations in this mechanism.

Secondly, the Government of Georgia should fully implement the recent recommendationof the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, namely, to “ensure systematic civil society participation in the monitoring and investigation of police stations and prison facilities; in this regard, it should ensure access to civil society organizations (other than those represented in the national preventive mechanism) to all premises and facilities where people are detained.”

Thirdly, we call current Public Defender to look into all cases that we had been communicating to the PDO, containing among other thing reports about a number of torture cases over the past several years. The Ombudsman’s office should take charge of not only discussing the cases but also to follow up on them and advocate for changes and improvements to combat impunity of the police and penitentiary officials.

Moreover,  the PDO was passive and inattentive towards the politically persecuted people in Georgia. Ombudsman should immediately start working on the sensitive cases. We have been providing and ready to provide further information on such cases.

Having stated the above we call on the Public Defender Office to admit its responsibility in failing implementation of its mandate with regard to prevention of torture and dealing with sensitive cases. It is ultimately important to have active Public Defender during the pre-election period who would act as a mediator between the government and society. Unfortunately, the country is meeting the upcoming elections without properly appointed Ombudsman.

Moreover, it is also noteworthy that the former senior officials of the MIA were appointed to the positions of the Deputy of the new Minister of Penitentiary and the Head of the Penitentiary Department. This make us have serious concerns that this institution will again be controlled de-facto by MIA.

We also call on the local and international organizations, donor organizations and diplomatic corps in Georgia to take their share of responsibility for not realizing and denying the truth and sharing the government’s portrayal of Georgia as a country, which is Free of Torture.

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