Human Rights Situation in Georgia Ahead of Parliamentary Elections

FIDH and its member organisation in Georgia, the Human Rights Center (HRIDC), have published a note on the human rights situation in Georgia, ahead of the country’s Parliamentary elections on 1 October 2012. Only two weeks before this event video footage of the torture and ill treatment of Georgian prison detainees has once again brought human rights to the top of the political agenda, provoking a strong condemnation and demonstrations.

2012 could be a crucial year for Georgia. In October, parliamentary elections will take place, which may lead to new civil rivalry. The 2012 elections are considered to be significantly more important than the 2013 presidential elections, as the new constitution states that the next presidential elections will turn the country into a parliamentary republic. As such, Georgia’s new head of State will have to cooperate closely with a powerful parliament.

Almost a year ago, in October 2011, Georgian Dream, a new opposition coalition with unprecedented financial backing appeared on the political scene. The coalition’s leader, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, is the richest person in Georgia. Some main opposition parties have joined this coalition, and for the first time in several years a real electoral alternative to the governing United National Movement party is available. However, since Bidzina Ivanishvili announced the establishment of his opposition party, political pressure on this party has increased, and room for freedom of expression in Georgia, which was already under threat, has shrunk dramatically.

A number of election-related human rights abuses have been recorded since December 2011. These include politically motivated pressure, persecution and threats, the hindering of pre-election meetings and journalistic activity, and pressure on businesses and private owners. The government has also introduced new legislative amendments on the funding of political parties, allowing extremely wide interpretative discretion and potentially selective application against political powers opposing the government.

In its interim report covering the period between 22 August and 5 September 2012 the OSCE election observation mission highlighted Georgian Dream’s lack of trust in the electoral process. The political environment in Georgia is clearly polarized and the electoral process is often conducted against a backdrop of radical confrontation. While government bodies reportedly use administrative resources to destabilize the political opposition and deprive citizens of their rights, they have failed to address other situations of serious concern, such as the treatment of Georgian prison inmates and the situation of 246,000 internally displaced persons awaiting adequate housing solutions. When these continued failures are no longer possible to ignore, as with the recent weeks revelations regarding torture in Georgian prisons, the government’s response has tended to minimise the dramatic and systematic character of these violations – denounced for years by the human rights organisations – and rather to use them in political rhetoric.

Recommendations

FIDH and HRIDC express their deep concern about the persistence of serious human rightsviolations in Georgia. The government should use all means at its disposal to ensure respect for the civil and political rights of its citizens and provide a secure and free climate for the elections due to take place on 1 October 2012. More generally, FIDH and HRIDC call upon the Georgian Government to:

- Ensure that the competent authorities undertake prompt and impartial investigations wherever there are reasonable grounds to believe that an act of torture or inhuman treatment has been committed at any level of the police hierarchy or in penitentiaryestablishments, in conformity with the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel,Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment;

- Take effective steps to prevent arbitrary detention and excessive use of force againstdetained persons;

- Improve the physical conditions in prisons and detention centres and consider facilitatingcivil society and human rights NGOs to visit persons in prisons and detention centres, as recommended by the European Parliament in November 2011.Improving prison conditions requires the state to ensure the full realization of the rights of prisoners in all penal establishments to have short-term visits, including direct contact with persons close to them; to amend the Code on Imprisonment to guarantee prisoners four square meters of space each; to ensure improvements in in-patient treatment conditions and an environment for the adequate treatment of TB-suffering remand prisoners;

- Revise the criminal justice system and the Zero Tolerance policy and amend the Criminal Code of Georgia to replace the current collective principle of punishments with the absorption principle of punishments;

- Conform with the provisions of the regional and international human rights treaties accepted by Georgia in the process of creating criminal law policy;

- Immediately release all political prisoners;

- Combat the disproportionate use of violence by public authorities, including law enforcement bodies, in conformity with the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and
Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials;

- Guarantee the physical and psychological integrity of peaceful demonstrators and journalists in all circumstances;

- Ensure conformity of the Law of Georgia on Assembly and Manifestations with standards prescribed by the European Court of Human Rights;
 
- Take effective steps to ensure the freedom of independent media, and allow the “must carry” and “must offer” principles during the Election Day, as well as during the post election period;

- Stop pressuring Maestro TV and Global TV;

- Revise the unprecedented powers of the State Audit Office (previously, the Chamber of
Control);

- Ensure that Georgian legislation conforms with international standards, especially regarding the law on political parties.

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