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Ucha Nanuashvili: “Unofficial Process of Exchange of Georgian and Ossetian Prisoners Started”

March 25, 2013

Interpresnews

Unofficial process of exchanging ethnic Ossetian prisoners into Georgian people arrested in Tskhinvali prison has already started. Public Defender Ucha Nanuashvili told Interpresnews about it and added that dozens of cases were observed where ethnic Ossetians were targeted to political persecution in Georgia.

According to Nanuashvili, one victim of political oppression was 75-year-old woman, who was arrested several times but finally she managed to flee from Georgia.

Besides that, according to the Ombudsman’s information, ethnic Ossetian citizens, who are placed in Georgian prisons, are mostly accused of espionage; there are women among them.

“There are more than ten ethnic Ossetian prisoners in Georgian prisons, who are convicted under several articles – mostly they deal with espionage. People were arrested for having contact, or lived in Tskhinvali. They mostly represent mixed families and had to travel to the conflict zone. Those people were oppressed and arrested after they refused to cooperate with the Georgian law enforcement bodies,” Ucha Nanuashvili said.

He added that even superficial study of those cases demonstrates that they were fabricated.

The Public Defender underlined that Ossetian people were persecuted on political and not on ethnic grounds.

“These people request to be moved to their own town- Tskhinvali. They want to be on the list we are drafting now. We want to have accurate list of ethnic Ossetian prisoners to start the exchange process that depends on the will of the governments,” said Nanuashvili.

The Public Defender requested Tskhinvali based nongovernmental organizations to estimate the number of Georgian citizens in Tskhinvali prisons and the process has already started there too.

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