TSU Students VS Self-Government

Sopo Getsadze

Students of the Tbilisi State University opposed the self-government of the University. They said the controversy started after they were physically assaulted by self-government members. 

The persecution of the students started after the presentation of the TSU based initiative group “Targmme” (translate).  At the presentation, the students blamed the self-government in unreasonable expenditure of the allocated funds.

The member of the initiative group Giorgi Gogua told the Human Rights Center that the meeting was held on April 15, Friday. The incident happened on the second day, Saturday; at about 1:00 pm. “We were waiting for the lecture when two persons approached us. They asked us to follow them and started to argue with us.”

One of the victims Lasha Kavtaradze said they were standing in front of the sixth building of the TSU when the members of the self-government approached them and led them to the back-yard of the second building of the TSU. They requested clarification for their remarks during the presentation. “An administration member told us it was nice that we informed him about the problem but I replied he should have already known about these problems.”

The students held protest rally against violence in front of the second building of the TSU on April 18. Their main request was to protect freedom of expression and to expel violator members of the student self-government from the university.

According to the students, the self-government members beat those students on April 16, whom they could not beat on the previous day. In addition, they learned about the so-called “black list” which was drawn up by the self-government and they inserted those students on the list who they were going to beat in near future.

“I joined the protest rally to protect freedom of expression, freedom of students and protested politization of these issues.”

„We request the University Administration to punish the violator students under university rules and cease their status of student. We also request to make the activities and expenditures of the university self-government transparent,” said the protest participants.

Several professors of the University and Art Academy, as well as foreign students of other high schools joined the students’ protest. TSU lecturer Lela Gaprindashvili said every citizen with honor should join the rally against the violence particularly professors who give lectures at the University.

The demonstrators requested meeting with the president of the self-government Dachi Gubadze. The president did not meet them though accepted several protesters in his office. He told them the students’ self-government does not negotiate with the students at the protest rally.

Dachi Gubadze refused to give interview to media representatives either. The members of the self-government did not allow journalists to meet him; they were guarding his office.