Teachers Are Persecuted on Political Grounds in Regions

In accordance to the Constitution of Georgia and international acts a person shall not be intimidated on political rounds. Nevertheless, district and regional governmental officials, single mandate MPs force teachers and personnel of public schools to write resignation letters and fire them if their political views are not acceptable for the authority. The governmental officials then employ their close people on the vacant places.

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Dali Mindiashvili, director of the Gurjaani district educational resource center, was fired based on her personal statement. Officially the resource center does not subordinate to the Gurjaani municipality board and it is a branch of the Ministry of Education. However, Mindiashvili was forced to file resignation letter by Kakhaber Labuchidze, chairperson of Gurjaani municipality board. According to our information, Mindiashvili was threatened with launching criminal case against her unless she obeyed the order.

“I was really demanded to write resignation letter and threatened with launching a criminal case against me unless I obeyed them. They said it was easy for them to find at least two people who could blame me for having accepted a bribe from them for appointing them as directors of public schools,” said an employee of Gurjaani district educational resource center in her conversation with us but preferred to keep her name anonymous.

After Mindiashvili was dismissed Lali Gabitashvili was appointed as the head of the educational resource-center. Gabitashvili was assisting current Kakheti regional governor Giorgi Ghviniashvili during the parliamentary elections on May 21, 2008. The latter was a single mandate candidate for the parliament from the district. Gabitashvili was accompanying him to public schools in the district and tried to assure teachers to vote for him.

Before being dismissed Dali Mindiashvili refused the ruling party to support their candidate during the pre-election campaign. In her interview with a regional newspaper Mindiashvili said it was beyond her competence to support any concrete candidate during the campaign.

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Tamar Koroghlishvili, art teacher and deputy director of the Public School in the village of Gurjaani was also fired. The official reason for her dismissal was violation of Article 37, part “D” of the Labor Code of Georgia.

In fact, Koroghlishvili said that the director had demanded her several times to request her relative to quit his work at the election HQ of the late candidate for presidential elections Badri Patarkatsishvili. Although I used to ask her to tell me who demanded her to fire me, she did not say anything,” said Tamar Koroghlishvili. In May 2009 Marine Utiashvili, the director, was also fired from the same school. According to the Board of Trustees the director was fired because some violations were discovered in the school.

When Marine Utiashvili was director of the public school, she categorically denied being ordered by the local authority to oppress teachers to support the ruling party.

“Political orientation was very important to get a job at school. Short time before the presidential elections on January 5, 2008 and parliamentary elections on May 21, 2008 Lali Gabitashvili, head of resource center, asked me to give as many working hours to a teacher of French language at my school as possible because she had given free French lessons to her child. I refused Gabitashvili. Afterwards, deputy regional governor Giorgi Sibashvili requested me to appoint certain person as the deputy director at school. I can say that Lali Gabitashvili is a protégé of Giorgi Sibashvili. At the meetings in the resource-center the problems at public schools were never discussed; we only received directions how to support the ruling party.”

‘It was November 2008 when directors of public schools in the district were ordered to go to Tbilisi to join the demonstration organized by the ruling party. I missed the bus of the district administration and had to take a taxi to get to Tbilisi on time. Otherwise I could have been fired,” said Marine Utiashvili, newspaper “Alia” June 6, 2009.

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According to our information Nona Achuashvili, director of Public School in the village of Vazisubani was also fired based on the orders from Kakheti regional administration. “Otherwise there should have been some concrete violation indicated in the conclusion of the General Inspection of the Ministry of Education as a reason for my dismissal. However, there was nothing mentioned in the document for what I deserved to be fired,” said Achuashvili.

Several days before, a friend of Giorgi Sibashvili Ketevan Beriashvili was appointed as a director of the public school in Vazisubani. The wife of Sibashvili’s friend Davit Papuashvili occupied the position of the director of the public school in the village of Gurjaani; her name is Rusudan Mamulashvili.

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Maia Ghapishvili, director of Public School N1 in Dedoplistskaro is also intimidated by the local governmental officials. According to official information her rival during the polls was mother of current Dedoplistskaro district governor Tamar Baghashvili. The latter was not supported by the board of trustees. Since son of Tamar Baghashvili Levan Baghashvili was appointed as the district governor, members of the board opposed the director and ceased labor agreement with her. The director appealed to the court against their decision and the court satisfied her appeal. Since then, part of teachers, who were dismissed from school by her, started to oppose her too. They appealed to the Trade Union of Teachers, other organizations and court. District Court satisfied the appeal of the teachers; however Tbilisi Appeal Court canceled the decision of the first court. Makvala Madzgarashvili, head of the branch of the Trade Union in Dedoplistskaro district opposed Ghapiashvili too. During the election of directors Madzgarashvili was official representative of Tamar Baghashvili at school. On June 14 election of board of trustees was conducted in public schools throughout Georgia. On the previous day, the candidates among parents who supported the director submitted their applications to the commission and refused to participate in the elections. Ekaterine Zuroshvili, Nino Tsiklauri, Guranda Gurgenidze and Roza Gogilashvili do not comment why they refused to be elected. Their official reasons in the applications are family problems. Maia Ghapiashvili said the candidates refused under oppression. Member of the election commission Lia Aladashvili also speaks about intimidation; she was the only independent member of the commission. She said she was also demanded to resign and consequently she arrived at the election district together with a lawyer and there she declared that certain people tried to oppress her.

On June 14, 16 people observed the elections in Dedoplistskaro public school N 1. Majority of observers were local governmental officials. For example, Levan Jamalashvili was head of Social Department within the Dedoplistskaro Municipality Board; Levan Natroshvili, representative of the territorial body of the Dedoplistskaro district administration and Gia Sheshtakishvili, close friend of Levan Jamalashvili.

One candidate for the board of trustees among parents was Maka Menteshashvili who is secretary of the district governor, another candidate was director of district Achieve Inga Tarashvili; as for the election commission, Marine Tskhvediashvili – representative of the privatization department in Dedoplistskaro district was the chairperson of the commission; Juna Sheitnishvili was the secretary of the commission; she represented the local NGO of Tamar Baghashvili, the mother of the district governor.

Commission members were: Mari Jamalashvili-daughter of Levan Jamalashvili, Eter Davitashvili – chairperson of the board of trustees of the school. Coordinator from the Ministry of Education was in the polling station all day long who is former member of the district administration – Marine Mekhrishvili. In fact, Mekhrishvili and officials from the district administration were conducting the elections.

As a result of voting Lali Zurashvili – an official of the social department within the district administration, Eter Kikilashvili – lawyer of the Municipality Board, Khatuna Zurikashvili – head of medical emergency service of the district, Imaze Baghashvili – doctor of the medical emergency service and Ia Usenashvili, doctor of the same service became the members of the board.

Parents also were oppressed. More precisely, Levan Jamalashvili and others did not allow several parents into the polling station. Those parents had not guaranteed the election commission to vote for the candidates of the local authority.
The municipality board was running the election commission. Before the elections the commission worked not in the public school but in the building of the district administration.

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As we were reported several days ago Nona Gomelauri, head of the Dedoplistskaro district educational resource center also wrote resignation letter. The officials from the resource-center state that single mandate MP from the district Avtandil Lekashvili had ordered Gomelauri to resign. Gomelauri prefers to keep silence regarding the issue. The resource-center confirmed that next candidate for the position of Gomelauri is Marine Mekhrishvili who is a protégé of the MP Lekashvili.

MP Lekashvili does not deny having met Gomelauri two weeks ago but he claims that he had not demanded her to resign from the position. “We just conversed,” said the MP.