The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI)

 The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) publishes second report on Georgia.

ECRI was established by the Council of Europe. It is an independent human rights monitoring body specialised in questions relating to racism and intolerance.

The country-by-country approach deals with all member States of the Council of Europe on an equal footing. The work is taking place in 4/5 year cycles, covering 9/10 countries per year. The reports of the first round were completed at the end of 1998 and those of the second round at the end of the year 2002. Work on the third round reports started in January 2003.

The third round reports focus on “implementation”. They examine if ECRI’s main recommendations from previous reports have been followed and implemented, and if so, with what degree of success and effectiveness. The third round reports deal also with “specific issues”, chosen according to the different situations in the various countries, and examined in more depth in each report.

The working methods for the preparation of the reports involve documentary analyses, a contact visit in the country concerned, and then a confidential dialogue with the national authorities.

ECRI’s reports are not the result of inquiries or testimonial evidences. They are analyses based on a great deal of information gathered from a wide variety of sources. Documentary studies are based on an important number of national and international written sources. The in situ visit allows for meeting directly the concerned circles (governmental and non-governmental) with a view to gathering detailed information. The process of confidential dialogue with the national authorities allows the latter to propose, if they consider it necessary, amendments to the draft report, with a view to correcting any possible factual errors which the report might contain. At the end of the dialogue, the national authorities may request, if they so wish, that their viewpoints be appended to the final report of ECRI.

The following report was drawn up by ECRI under its own and full responsibility. It covers the situation as of 30 June 2006 and any development subsequent to this date is not covered in the following analysis nor taken into account in the conclusions and proposal made by ECRI.

Since the publication of ECRI’s first report on Georgia on 23 April 2002, progress has been made in a number of the fields highlighted in that report. Georgia has ratified a number of legal instruments relevant to the fight against racism and intolerance, including the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. New criminal law provisions have been introduced to prohibit racial discrimination and incitement to racial hatred. The authorities have taken steps to curb violent acts of religious intolerance. A civil integration programme has been launched for the country’s ethnic and religious minorities and other minority groups. It includes measures to improve ethnic minorities’ knowledge of Georgian and an educational reform designed in particular to take fuller account of the country’s cultural diversity.

However, a number of recommendations made in ECRI’s first report have not been implemented, or have only been partially implemented. Ethnic minorities’ lack of knowledge of Georgian is a major obstacle to their integration and hampers their access to information, public services, education and employment. They continue to feel like second-class citizens, take little part in the country’s public and political affairs and come up against a series of problems which the state must help them to resolve. Members of non-traditional religious minorities can still be exposed to physical attacks on them or their property. They also encounter administrative and other barriers to religious worship. A number of shortcomings must be remedied in asylum law and practice. Refugees from Chechnya are subject to illegal treatment on the part of law enforcement officials. Those who live in the Pankisi region suffer difficult living conditions. The authorities are insufficiently aware of the situation of some minority groups such as Roma and migrants, and do not monitor it sufficiently. Progress towards resolving the issue of the return of Meskhetian Turks to Georgia is too slow. Persons displaced as a result of armed conflict in the country continue to experience difficult living conditions and suffer from a lack of integration. Stereotypes and prejudice liable to cause discrimination persist among the majority population, particularly against ethnic minorities, non-traditional religious minorities, refugees from Chechnya and Meskhetian Turks.

In this report, ECRI recommends that the Georgian authorities take further action in a number of areas. It recommends in particular that they continue to supplement the criminal law provisions for combating racism and intolerance and to provide officials in the judicial system with more training on the importance of applying provisions of this kind. It asks that a specialised body be set up to combat racism and racial discrimination and that the civil and administrative law provisions prohibiting racial discrimination be strengthened. ECRI recommends that efforts to effectively combat manifestations of religious intolerance be strengthened. Steps should be taken to put an end to the law enforcement agencies’ illegal acts against refugees from Chechnya. Lastly, ECRI recommends that ways be found to enable ethnic minorities to participate more fully in the country’s affairs and to communicate with the authorities while preserving their languages and cultures.