Ombudsman Met with Journalists and Representatives of NGO Sector in Kakheti

Mikheil Mamalashvili, Kakheti

On July 4th, Ombudsman of Georgia Ucha Nanuashvili met with the journalists and representatives of NGO sector in Gurjaani. The meeting was held in the office of Kakheti Information Center. Ombudsman introduced 2012 report at the meeting which has been presented to the Parliament. Ucha Nanuashvili talked about the problems existing in the penitentiary as well as mass dismissals from jobs in the local governments after the parliamentary elections.

Special attention was paid to the religious incident in the village Samtatskharo of Dedoplistskaro region. Ombudsman stated that he would go to the place of incident and would observe the process of holding traditional Muslim prayer on Friday. “State is obliged to investigate any such incident and punish the offender. We were waiting for the relevant reaction from the side of the state. Therefore we did not publish this statement earlier.”

Ucha Nanuashvili disseminated statement regarding this issue on July 3rd according to which Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) officials were threatening religious leader of Muslims to put him in jail for life. MIA denied this fact.

Ucha Nanuashvili also met with the family members of Barbare Rapaliantsi who died in the village Kolagi a day prior to 2012 parliamentary elections. After the meeting Ombudsman stated with the journalists that Office of Ombudsman has started to study the case of Barbare Rapaliantsi. 

“We are studying the case now and we hope that very soon we will have detailed information regarding this case. Our main message to government is that this case must be investigated on time.”

Ten-month old Barbare Rapaliantsi was found dead in the cellar on September 30th of 2012 in the village Kolagi in half an hour after the search started.

Ombudsman noted several times during the meeting that he is interested that representation of Office of Ombudsman will be opened in Kakheti which will actively engage to study the problems of the region and address various bodies of government with concrete recommendations.