Seventy-two-year-old Margo Tsetskhladze arrived in Kutaisi from Kobuleti early in the morning. The old mother knows that she can contact her son by delivering a parcel and she is ready for it. The woman in black is drying her sweaty forehead with a handkerchief and puts the bag in front of her legs having received an answer to her question- “who is the last in the queue?” The queue is too long. Everybody knows that they will not be able to go home soon. It is Thursday and prisoners from Kutaisi Prison # 2 are waiting for parcels from their relatives. The parcels do not seem too challenging.
“The guards are not human beings. Although we are sending simple things to our prisoners, they are checking everything in detail. You have to come here early in the morning to wait your turn in order to be able to send the parcel in the evening. If you are late you will have to find some shelter for the night to come back here in the morning,” a young man, standing first in line, cannot help his anger.
He tells many interesting stories. “Our government is lying when it says the situation in the detention centers has improved. Akhalaia’s (the head of the Penitentiary Department) employees attack this prison at night and raid it. My relative serves a term of twelve years for theft. Yesterday, his mother told me that prisoners are living in the poorest of conditions. Certain drunken young men of about 25-30 years old attacked the prisoners saying they were from Tbilisi Penitentiary Department and destroyed everything there. Then they beat the prisoners and rushed out of the detention center. These prisons are Akhalaia’s cellars. The conditions will never improve there.”
There are nearly 80 people in the queue, but not everybody wants to express his/her ideas. It is not difficult to guess why they prefer to keep silent. However, there are people who do not avoid talking openly. For example, Ms. Leila has two relatives in the prison - her brother and son. Her brother is sentenced to eight years imprisonment and her son is still is still awaiting trial.
“I can only see my son once a month and when I arrive I am afraid I will not manage to enter and will have to take my parcel back. It takes one hour to send in one parcel. I cannot understand what they are checking them for. We are only allowed to send cucumber, potato, honey and fruit, while the prisoners are almost starving. The menu of the prison does not contain any meat or milk. Do you know what I think? They have forbidden those products in order to make it easier to check the parcels,” said Ms. Leila.
Meanwhile, a visitor, whose turn has arrived, picks up her bag and mentions the name of the prisoner to the officer from the detention center and hands in the parcel. She is worried because she could not put any sugar in it.
“The prisoners are complaining about the lack of sugar. However, we cannot send sugar to them. The reason is that the convicts make an alcoholic beverage of it,” said one of the people.
“Yes, they do it. They say that the alcoholic beverage, Braga, can be made of sugar and black bread,” said the second man.
It is nearly 12:00 AM and the queue in front of Kutaisi prison is becoming longer and longer. Consequently, you can hear various stories from the prison cells. We learn here that prisoners have various ways to get in touch with the outside world. For example, the court is responsible for granting prisoners the right to meet his/her relatives on the basis of his/her appeal. The duration of the meeting is 15 minutes.
Visitors can meet their relatives in the maximum security prison once every six months. Prisoners in a strict regime establishment can meet their relatives once in a month. We learned this information from the attorneys who arrived at the detention center to see their clients. Ana Chafidze spoke openly about the violations in the prison.
“The situation here not only breaches Georgian legislation, but also the rights envisaged by the European Convention on Human Rights. Prisoners have no means of communication to get in touch with their family members; they cannot send or receive letters. If a prisoner has an attorney, the latter is a mediator between the family and the convict. Even in this case, the letter is read thoroughly. According to the Georgian Law on Defense Attorney’s, the Georgian Criminal Procedural Code and article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the relationship between the attorney and the client is confidential. However, everything happens differently here. When I demand them to explain to me why they act this way, their answer is that they act according to the internal regulations enacted by the Penitentiary Department.”
While the receptionist of the prison accepts the parcel, people start a conversation about medications and the medical service of the detention center. It seems that the situation is grave in this field too; though our government is proud of its penitentiary system. The only medical supplies available in prison are painkillers and bandages. “They do not have a neurologist, cardiologist, or psychiatrist in the detention center. Doctors can only visit prisoners after the attorney requests them for his client. There are not enough people working in the medical service department and it is difficult to examine the health of the prisoners. Consequently, their health conditions become more and more serious. As for the lack of medication, the relatives of the prisoners try to supply the prisoners with them,’ said Chafidze.
The queue to the Kutaisi Prison is getting shorter and shorter. The oldest person in the queue, Margo Tsetskhladze, will have to wait her turn, ten people stand in line before her.
Shorena Kakabadze, Kutaisi
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