Roman Apakidze
The international human rights organization admitted the existence of the political prisoners in Georgia though it was previously claimed only by local non-governmental organizations. FIDH publishes a report which states: There are political prisoners in Georgia.
The International Federation for Human Rights lists 8 political prisoners in Georgia. They are: Nora Kvitsiani, Joni Jikia, Revaz Kldiashvili, Shalva Ramishvili, Maia Topuria (and other people arrested together with her), Demur Antia, Omar Kutsnashvili and Merab Rtishvili. The report states that the aim of the organization was not to draw up complete list of the political prisoners in Georgia. The organization studied only several pilot cases and concluded that there are political prisoners in Georgia. The Federation carried out the survey based on the definition of the political prisoners given in the document of the Council of Europe. These criteria were worked out on May 3, 2001. The pilot cases studied by the organization comply with the criteria of the CoE.
The organization plans to send the report to the CoE, EU and OSCE for further reactions. The International Human Rights Federation requests to send special commission to Georgia to study all these cases.
The Federation sent special mission to Georgia to carry out the survey in 2009. The mission consisted of three people and they worked here on February 19-25, 2009. They studied the pilot cases, met family members and attorneys of the victimized people, public defender of Georgia, various political parties and representatives of the non-governmental organizations and other governmental officials.
The members of the mission were:
- Gregoire Thery – FIDH liaison officer to the European Union
- Kiril Koroteev – Legal consultant to the “Memorial” Human Rights Center
- Eldar Zeynalov – Head of the Human Rights Center of Azerbaijan
See the full text of the report in PDF