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TITLE: GEOGIA HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1994
AUTHOR: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DATE: FEBRUARY 1995
GEORGIA
Georgia declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Following multiparty parliamentary elections in 1992,
Parliament chose Eduard Shevardnadze as its Chairman in an
uncontested election and named him Head of State. The Head of
State appoints the Prime Minister and the members of the
Council of Ministers (Cabinet) who, with other executive
officials, report to him.
At the end of 1993, Georgia agreed to a U.N.-brokered cease-
fire with Abkhazian separatists, who had forcibly taken control
of the entire Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia in 1993. In
April Abkhazian, Georgian, Russian, and United Nations
representatives signed an agreement on the resettlement of
internally displaced persons (IDP's); a peacekeeping force,
drawn nominally from the Commonwealth of Independent States
(CIS) but comprised entirely of Russian forces, was deployed
along the Inguri River which separates Abkhazia from the rest
of Georgia. The role of the UNOMIG (United Nations Observer
Mission in Georgia), already deployed in Georgia, was enlarged
to include monitoring the actions of the peacekeeping force.
Abkhazia declared its independence from Georgia in November.
Attempts to reform the police, security services, armed forces,
and paramilitary forces were only partly successful in 1994.
The Government's anticrime campaign reduced much of the random
violent crime in Tbilisi, the capital, and curbed some of the
abuses committed by these forces. However, corruption on the
part of law enforcement officials and police brutality are
pervasive. Police routinely beat and otherwise mistreated
detainees during pretrial detention.
Internal conflicts and the disruption of trade links with other
republics of the former Soviet Union have left Georgia's
economy in ruins. Dependent on imported fuels for which the
Government could not pay, Georgia has endured an acute energy
crisis, including the complete stoppage of natural gas
deliveries from Turkmenistan between mid-November and early
December. Water, electricity, and natural gas are frequently
unavailable, even in Tbilisi, the capital. With industry
functioning at 20 percent of capacity and inflation as high as
50 percent per month, the standard of living of the population
dropped further, making the country dependent on humanitarian
grain shipments from abroad.
A further burden on the Government's limited resources is the
contribution by the Government to the 250,000 people displaced
from Abkhazia and a lesser number from South Ossetia. The
refugees and IDP's are housed at government expense in
reassigned public buildings and receive small support
stipends. Surveys undertaken jointly by nongovernmental
organizations and the Government indicated that the displaced
and refugees were satisfied with the level of financial
support, although they remain critical of slow progress in
repatriation efforts. CIS peacekeepers were unable to create a
safe environment in Abkhazia for the return of IDP's, stating
that police functions were not part of their mandate. The
Abkhazian authorities allowed only a few hundred ethnic
Georgians to return and, just prior to the first resettlements,
razed 4 Georgian villages, killing 20 persons, after unknown
assailants had killed 4 Abkhazian police. Abkhazian
authorities called for ethnically cleansing Abkhazia of all
Georgians by September 27 and were credibly reported to have
tortured, raped, killed, expelled, and imprisoned hundreds of
Georgians and other non-Abkhaz.
In South Ossetia, a 2-year-old cease-fire, monitored by CIS
peacekeepers and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in
Europe (CSCE), partially succeeded in curbing human rights
abuses in that region.
Human rights abuses continued in the rest of Georgia, including
apparent extrajudicial killings, hostage-taking or kidnaping,
police beatings of detainees and demonstrators, arbitrary
detention, denial of fair public trial, and arbitrary
interference with privacy and home. There were no known
summary executions in 1994, although the state of emergency
decree that permitted the practice was not lifted until
October. Freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association
were significantly less restricted, although some instances of
abuse still occurred.
RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including
Freedom from:
a. Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing
In the fall of 1993, during the state of emergency, the
Minister of Internal Affairs reportedly personally shot and
killed at least one of nine youths in Zugdidi who were accused
of looting. The Minister appears so far to have evaded
repeated calls for an investigation into his role in the
summary executions which occurred in Zugdidi in 1993.
It is often difficult to distinguish between criminal activity
and political killings. For example, the assassination of the
Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs in March, in which
individual police officers were implicated, appears to have
been the work of mafia elements. The bombing of the Armenian
Theater in Tbilisi in June, which resulted in one death, may
have been the work of Azerbaijani sympathizers as an outgrowth
of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The attempted bombing of a
Moscow-bound passenger plane carrying a former Georgian defense
minister, who is also a crime world figure, may have been
either politically motivated or the work of criminal elements.
The paramilitary organization Mkhedrioni, also called the
Georgia Rescue Corps, remains actively involved in widespread
criminal activity. Since several small factions feud among
themselves, it is unclear whether recent assassinations of
Mkhedrioni members were the result of factional disputes,
vendettas, or political motivation.
The State Committee on Human Rights and Interethnic Relations
(SCHR), in a report issued in 1994, claimed that 50 detainees
died, and many others required hospitalization, while being
incarcerated at the Tbilisi interrogation cell in 1993.
The head of the Abkhazian parliament reportedly has claimed
that the Abkhazian authorities have made good-faith attempts to
bring to trial 40 people associated with political killings and
other atrocities carried out against Georgian civilians during
the war. However, independent observers have not verified that
claim.
b. Disappearance
The fate of many Georgians and Abkhaz who have disappeared
since 1992 as a result of the Abkhazian conflict is still
unknown. Over 1,000 Georgians are still reported missing,
according to the SCHR, which maintains a current list. Some
are thought to have been executed, and rumors persist that the
Abkhaz are holding others in secret forced labor camps within
Abkhazia.
Amnesty International appealed to the Government in 1994 to
investigate the status of seven ethnic Abkhaz who reportedly
were detained by government forces in Sukhumi in October 1992.
Amnesty International listed these persons as "disappeared."
The Government considers these individuals missing but reported
that it had no information about their alleged detention and,
without access to Abkhazia, asserted it was unable to
investigate the matter.
Among the many persons who disappeared during the Abkhazian
conflict are 46 Georgians whom Abkhazian forces, according to
the Government, seized in September 1993 in Sukhumi, along with
the former chairman of the council of ministers of Abkhazia.
The Abkhaz executed the former chairman, despite Russian
assurances of safe conduct out of the region, but the fate of
27 of his staff members and 19 soldiers is unknown. The
Government has repeatedly appealed to international human
rights groups to investigate this case.
The 1994 SCHR report charged that peacekeeping contingents in
South Ossetia engaged in hostage-taking in 1993.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment
High government officials admit that law enforcement personnel
routinely beat detainees. Officials often resort to physical
and psychological abuse to extract information and
confessions. Most of the abuse reportedly occurs during
pretrial detention.
Physical abuse also occurs, though apparently less frequently,
during the trial period of a criminal defendant's
incarceration. The press reported that Viktor Domukhovski,
1 of 19 defendants in a well-known trial of alleged terrorists,
claimed that prison officials beat him for refusing to
relinquish his diary (see Section 1.e.). Domukhovski's wife
reported that he was again beaten on December 11, this time by
fellow prisoners, but with the complicity of at least one
prison official.
Nongovernmental human rights groups reported significantly
fewer abuses by the Georgian security services during 1994. In
some instances, however, the security services reportedly
resorted to threatening, intimidating tactics during
interrogations.
In general, prison conditions deteriorated parallel with the
economic situation. Prison officials could not provide
adequate food and medicines for inmates, who in turn relied on
their families and friends to supplement the meager supplies.
Prison infirmaries lacked medicine to treat diseases like
tuberculosis and dysentery, which are prevalent in the
prisons. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
was permitted visitation rights to all regular prisoners but
was not allowed unrestricted access to the extradited former
military commander, Lote Kobalia, who served under deposed
Prime Minister Zviad Gamsakhurdia and was being held virtually
incommunicado by the security service.
The SCHR reported that prisons were overcrowded, with 12 to 15
inmates frequently sharing cells designed for 3 to 4 persons
and with 2 persons sharing individual bunks. Interrogation
cells are extremely cramped and unsanitary, and prisoners are
not protected from violence and brutal treatment.
d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile
Although the Government nullified relevant Soviet-era
legislation, Parliament still had not finished drafting new
laws governing arrest and detention procedures. While some law
enforcement officials continued to abide by Soviet-era law, the
consequent legal vacuum opened the door to significant abuse.
Under the former Soviet-era law, prosecutors issued warrants
for arrests and searches. Persons caught in the act of
committing a crime could be legally arrested without a warrant
and be detained for up to 72 hours. After this time, police
were required to request and receive permission from the
prosecutor for continued detention. The law requires the
prosecutor to file charges within 72 hours, but criminal
suspects are often held in pretrial detention for over a year
before prosecutors file formal charges against them.
A detainee has the right to demand immediate access to a lawyer
and to refuse to make a statement in the absence of counsel.
The detaining officer must inform the detainee of these rights
and must notify the detainee's family of his location as soon
as possible. A suspect has the right to demand the presence of
counsel during all questioning. The presence of an attorney is
mandatory during the interrogation of a minor or of an
individual accused of a capital crime. The presence of a
teacher or a parent is also obligatory during questioning of a
minor. However, these rights are frequently violated.
Police may administratively detain a person without a warrant
for several violations, including participating in an illegal
demonstration, but a senior Internal Affairs Ministry official
or an administrative judge must approve the detention within
3 hours. A judge, who may sentence the defendant for up to 15
days' imprisonment, must then decide the case within 24 hours.
Authorities frequently ignore these legal requirements.
In mid-September, Abkhazian authorities arrested and detained
nine ethnic Georgians fishing off the Abkhazian coast, claiming
that the detainees were fishing in Abkhazian territorial
waters. Although the Abkhazian authorities want to exchange
the nine for all Abkhaz currently being held in Georgian
prisons, the Government maintains that all Abkhazian prisoners
were transferred to Russian prisons 2 years ago. A few Abkhaz,
however, may have been imprisoned since the war in western
Georgia.
The SCHR reportedly successfully negotiated a prisoner swap
with Abkhazian authorities in October. Abkhazian authorities
released a Georgian held since 1991 in exchange for several
ethnic Abkhaz who had previously been transferred to Russian
prisons.
There were no exiles.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
Continuing political instability and legislative disarray
stymied any serious attempts at effecting the rule of law in
Georgia. The criminal justice system is governed by a welter
of conflicting laws from Georgia's brief period of pre-Soviet
independence, the Soviet era, the Gamsakhurdia presidency (1990
to January 1992), and the current State Council period, which
result in uneven and haphazard justice.
Courts of general jurisdiction are undifferentiated as to
function; judges may hear criminal, civil, and juvenile cases.
All courts may act as the court of first instance depending on
the nature and seriousness of the crime, and there are no clear
rules to determine which court first hears a case.
Prosecutors, ultimately responsible to the Procurator General
who is appointed by Parliament, are more powerful than either
judges or defense attorneys. Prosecutors direct all criminal
investigations conducted by the Internal Affairs Ministry,
exercise certain supervisory rights over the judiciary's
functions, and can request that the Supreme Court review one of
its own decisions. In contrast, the judiciary has little
influence over prosecutors. Such a system leaves the judiciary
vulnerable to political and other forms of persuasion,
particularly at the local level.
The defendant is presumed innocent and by law is supposed to
enjoy various due process rights. Judges frequently send cases
unlikely to end in convictions back to the prosecutor for
"additional investigation." Such cases may then be dropped or
closed, occasionally without informing the court or the
defendant.
In practice, fair public trials are the exception rather than
the norm, due largely to the incompetence and corruption of the
judicial branch, which is packed with Soviet-era appointees.
Proceedings are not conducted in an adversarial manner. Many
judges reportedly accept bribes and take instructions from
powerful individuals both inside and outside the Government.
The trial of 19 people implicated in the 1992 attempted
assassination by car bomb of Mkhedrioni leader Jaba Joseliani
which killed 5 people, including a child, provides the most
striking examples of the denial of due process. Authorities
refused to provide legal counsel to one of the defendants,
Zurab Bardzimashvili, for several months following his arrest.
Following the appointment of an attorney not of his choosing,
in April they denied his request to change counsel. When he
suffered an apparent heart attack on August 4, the court did
not immediately permit him to be taken to a hospital.
Defendant Zaza Tsiklauri was also denied counsel of his
choosing and was assigned the same attorney as Bardzimashvili.
This attorney was threatened with disbarment after she
complained of being assigned against the defendants' wishes.
The judge repeatedly denied the requests of defense attorneys
for Tsiklauri and Gedevan Gelbakhiaini to allow their clients
full access to the documents in the case.
There are no known political prisoners.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
Correspondence
Intelligence agencies, including both Georgian and Russian
services, are credibly reported to monitor private telephone
conversations. Prior to his assassination, Gia Chanturia, the
head of the National Democratic Party, complained publicly that
his office was electronically monitored.
Both paramilitary and law enforcement representatives enter
homes without legal sanction. However, most Soviet-era forms
of interference diminished.
Telephone communications with Abkhazia and South Ossetia are
almost impossible because local authorities exercise control
over them.
g. Use of Excessive Force and Violations of Humanitarian
Law in Internal Conflicts
Internal conflict abated in Georgia during 1994. Cease-fires
are in place in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and the Government
has reestablished tenuous control over the western region of
the country. However, in Abkhazia and the cease-fire zone
around Gali, Abkhaz committed egregious human rights abuses
against the remaining Georgians despite the presence of Russian
peacekeepers. Armed indigenous guerrillas in the so-called
Svanetian-Georgian region of Abkhazia and renegade Georgians in
the Gali region also committed abuses sporadically. Confirmed
evidence of human rights violations is difficult to obtain
because of the lack of access to the region and the fear of
reprisal among the victims.
Abkhazian separatists reportedly executed as many as 800
Georgians and other non-Abkhaz who remained in the Gali region
of Abkhazia. From January through April, the following
executions reportedly took place: 32 in Ganathleba; 40 in
Gudara; 11 in Muhuri; 14 in Muhurchi; 9 in Tsarchushi; 55 in
Okami; 16 in Perveli Gali; and 17 in Nabakevi. The Abkhaz
police reportedly shot some victims. They also allegedly
tortured some victims before burning them to death. Rape,
which often took place in front of the victim's family, was so
common that there were no attempts to keep statistics. Many of
those executed allegedly were the elderly and women.
Abkhazian police officers on November 15 seized an elderly
ethnic Mingrelian man in Kokhoria, attached wires to the man's
legs, and doused him with diesel fuel. They then attached the
wires to a battery and repeatedly shocked the man. The man's
relatives found him alive but unconscious. They alerted the
police commander, who beat and arrested the officers
responsible.
Despite international law which provides that IDP's have the
right to free, safe, and dignified return to their homes, the
250,000 Georgians who fled Abkhazia during the 1993 ethnic
cleansing campaign were officially allowed to begin returning
only in October. By year's end, fewer than 300 had returned.
Unofficially, several thousand IDP's spontaneously returned,
but only at great personal risk. Until the Russian
peacekeeping operation took over in mid-November, Abkhazian
forces were in charge of providing security in the Gali
security zone. Days prior to the first official return of
IDP's in October, 200 Abkhazian police, reportedly in the
presence of the Abkhazian minister of the interior, razed
4 Georgian villages in the Gali area, killing 20 persons, after
unknown assailants killed 4 Abkhazian police officers.
Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Speech and Press
In practice, freedom of the press in 1994 was almost
universal. The authorities did not attempt to reimpose
censorship of the antigovernment press. Virtually all
newspapers that had been closed in the past reopened, some
under new names.
Opposition leaders also obtained uncensored access to
television and radio broadcast time, although they frequently
complained that they did not receive enough air time. Adjarian
parliament chairman Aslan Abashidze accused the Georgian
Government of denying Adjar television 10 minutes a day to
broadcast on Georgian television. However, the energy crisis,
damage from a fire in October at the Tbilisi radio and
television tower, and paper shortages limited all media.
Journalists covering demonstrations were subject to police
beatings through most of the year, as well as to harassment by
political forces opposing their views. On average, police beat
one or two journalists per month, including a local Reuters
reporter on June 14 and another journalist during the October
visit of the U.N. Secretary General.
b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
The Government was more tolerant of antigovernment
demonstrations during 1994 than in previous years. However,
law enforcement troops continued to disperse unsanctioned
rallies, sometimes forcibly. In practice, the Government
allowed demonstrations anywhere except along the main
thoroughfare, Rustaveli Avenue, provided the organizers
requested permission in advance. Opposition groups apparently
did not always seek permission and then complained that police
harassed them while dispersing unsanctioned rallies.
Frequently, the Government preemptively deployed special police
(OMON) units, whose chilling presence intimidated would-be
demonstrators.
On frequent occasions, police briefly detained opposition
leaders who organized unsanctioned demonstrations. On July 9,
police and OMON units forcibly broke up a demonstration
organized by several opposition parties, and police detained at
least one of the radical opposition leaders.
c. Freedom of Religion
The Government took no actions to restrict freedom of religion.
d. Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign
Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation
The old Soviet system of registering residency still remains in
place, although enforcement is uneven. Both foreign and
internal travel, as well as emigration, are unrestricted.
There are, however, practical problems with travel in the areas
of former conflict (see Section 1.g.).
Citizens generally enjoy the right to return, but there is
continuing controversy over the desire of former, primarily
Muslim,residents of the Mskheti region, deported from Georgia
by Stalin in 1944 to return to that area. Approximately
270,000 Mskhetians now living in Russia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine,
Kazakhstan, and other parts of Central Asia face significant
popular opposition to their return. The Cabinet issued a
decree on August 23 that would permit the Mskhetians to return;
Parliament, however, has not yet passed the legislation to
implement it. In November, 150 Mskhetians attempted to return
via Tskhinvali in South Ossetia, but Russian peacekeepers and
Georgian police reportedly stopped them. However, the
Government has established a repatriation service, which
currently subsidizes the study of 100 young Mskhetians in
Georgia.
Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens
to Change Their Government
The 225-member Parliament and its chairman, Eduard
Shevardnadze, were elected in nationwide, multiparty elections
in 1992, which international observers judged to be generally
free and fair despite widespread technical violations.
Parliament is drafting a new election law to govern the next
elections, scheduled for October 1995.
In the Adjar Autonomous Republic, Aslan Abashidze was elected
chairman of the Supreme Council in free and fair elections in
1991. The next parliamentary elections are scheduled for
October 1995.
Women and minorities are less well represented in Parliament
than they were during the Soviet or Gamsakhurdia eras. The
participation of women in politics is generally limited, partly
as a result of longstanding cultural traditions and partly as a
backlash to the Gamsakhurdia era, when women were perceived to
be among the ex-president's most ardent supporters. There are
only 11 women deputies in the Parliament, and there are no
women serving in ministerial posts. The lack of support for
minority candidates may reflect some resonance for
Gamsakhurdia's proethnic Georgian policies and the resulting
conflicts.
Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and
Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations
of Human Rights
The Government does not prevent nongovernmental organizations
from investigating human rights violations. There are several
organizations which profess to be human rights monitors, but
they often are composed of political opponents of the current
Government and have largely political, rather than human
rights, agendas. The members of the All-Georgian Association
of Human Rights, the Helsinki Union of Georgia, and the
Historical Justice League predominantly were supporters of
former president Gamsakhurdia.
In October President Shevardnadze issued a decree that charged
the SCHR with inspecting the conditions of detainees and
inmates, offering written appeals to the appropriate officials
to eliminate such abuses, and inspecting the conditions of
detainees and prisoners. It issued a report on human rights in
Georgia, highlighting a variety of abuses cited above.
The Government cooperates with international human rights
organizations. It assisted Human Rights Watch/Helsinki in
visiting 19 persons on trial for terrorism and other crimes
(see Section 1.e.) who claimed their human rights were
violated, as well as in other investigations. However, no
organization has yet obtained access to Lote Kobalia (see