Oppression on Political Grounds

Gela Mtivlishvili, Kakheti

Beka Tsetskhladze, 17, was interrogated at the Dedoplistskaro district prosecutor’s office. Police accuses him of illegal carriage of side-arms. The mother of the juvenile, Dali Tsetskhladze alleges her family started facing problems since they met Kakha Kukava, oppositionist leader, in Samtatskaro village.

Kakha Kukava, leader of the opposition political party “Free Georgia” visited the border village, mostly inhabited by Ingilo people and eco-migrants from Adjara, in September 2011. He met the peasants, discontent with the ongoing vintage. The Information Center of Kakheti found out that after Kukava’s visit, the district Social Service Agency stopped social allowances for several families in Samtatskaro, whom the opposition leader met. Among those families was a large family of Guram and Dali Tsetskhladzes.

“Before they seized our social allowance, the village governor Paata Nadirashvili met me in the street and inquired what we asked Kukava for? I told him Tamila is a god-sister of my children and she brought the leader of her party to my house. And the governor replied to me: “then, let Kukava assist you now.” Three weeks later they stopped our allowance; a social agent evaluated our family repeatedly and granted high points. While, there are eight members in our families - my wife, my retired mother, me and our five children. Dato is 20, Beka is 17 [he was interrogated], Manana is 12, Giorgi is 10 and Ana is 6. We do not have any properties; even the house we live in belongs to my sister. We have neither land nor cattle. The entire family lives on my mother’s pension.

-Why did they interrogate Beka?

-Village governor Paata Nadirashvili met me after the social allowance was stopped; he said I would expect more problems in future. Police detained our neighbor young man who had a knife. He wrote in his testimony, or was compelled to write, that Beka had given the knife to him. Last evening, the police inspector visited us at home and said we were summoned to the police station. Later he came again and said we had to go to the prosecutor’s office instead.

-What do they accuse your son of?

-They were questioning him during several hours. We asked them not to interrogate him without a lawyer. They said we could bring one but I do not have money to hire a lawyer. So, they questioned him in my presence. The neighbor boy had written that Beka had given the knife to him which the police officers found on him. Beka told the police officers he had found the knife in the street; then the boy asked him and he gave the knife to him. The officers at the Prosecutor’s Office told us the law prohibited him to carry a knife, so they might put my son in prison for several years.

-Who told you that a person is punished by several-year imprisonment for the carriage of a knife?

-They told us at the prosecutor’s office so,” Dali Tsetskhladze said.

According to the prosecutor’s office, a criminal case was launched on the carriage of a knife and they are investigating the fact. They refused to make other comments.

Lawyer Lia Khuroshvili clarified that carriage of a side-arm by a person under 21 is punished in accordance to the Article 238' of the Criminal Code of Georgia. “Article 238' Part I states that a person under 21 or a person with criminal record or person punished by administrative law for drug-addiction, is fined for the carriage of side-arms,” said Lia Khuroshvili.

Governor of Samtatskaro village Paata Nadirashvili claims the accusations against him are groundless.