Human Rights Watch (HRW), an international non-governmental organization, published a report on the developments in Georgia.
“Police and other security forces have used brutal violence against largely peaceful protesters in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, Human Rights Watch said today. In widespread and apparently punitive acts, security forces have chased down, violently detained, and beat protesters. Police also tortured and otherwise ill-treated them in police vans and police stations,” reads the report.
According to the report, Human Rights Watch spoke with a dozen survivors of police violence who said they had sustained head traumas: concussions and multiple fractures to their noses, facial bones, ribs and limbs, and scratches and bruises all over their bodies. Police were wearing riot gear or full-face black masks, with no identifiable insignia. The authorities charged hundreds of protesters with the misdemeanor offense of police disobedience, and prosecuted them in perfunctory trials, while failing to take effective steps to address serious allegations of ill-treatment.
“The level of the authorities’ violence against largely peaceful protesters is shocking, blatantly retaliatory, and violates Georgia’s domestic laws and international norms,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The scale of the police ill-treatment of protesters and the failure of Georgian authorities to hold them accountable for it indicates they either authorized or condoned the violence.”
The report reads that for over a week, the government responded to the protests with large amounts of tear gas, water cannons, and, at times, rubber bullets to repeatedly disperse largely peaceful crowds. Although there were sporadic and isolated instances of protesters throwing water bottles and fireworks at police in response to police violence, the protests remained largely peaceful. Georgia’s public defender and local observer groups said the police use of force was repeatedly excessive and disproportionate.
“Police chased down, encircled, attacked, and beat groups of demonstrators and dragged individual protesters behind police lines, where other officers would continue to punch, kick, and beat them with batons,” it said.
Referring to the local monitoring groups, the report says that since November 28 the authorities have arrested more than 460 protesters, of whom the majority face administrative charges and approximately 30 face criminal charges. The rights groups said that over 300 of those arrested alleged ill-treatment and torture during or following their arrest, with at least 80 of them requiring hospitalization.
The Public Defender’s office, which interviewed many of the detainees in custody, also expressed concern that an “alarming number of detainees indicate beating and ill-treatment.” Lawyers and trial observers also noted that administrative trials had been perfunctory, with judges basing rulings solely on police testimony, refusing to consider or take steps to respond to defendant statements about beatings, torture and other ill-treatment.
Most of the people interviewed said that the police dragged them or others behind the police cordon near the parliament building and beat them.
Riot police, as well as violent mobs presumably associated with authorities, have also beaten opposition media and independent journalists and interfered with media coverage. Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics, an independent journalists’ association, documented over 70 cases of interference and violence against journalists and media workers.
The Special Investigation Service, a body charged with investigating law enforcement abuses, opened investigations into the “facts of exceeding official powers using violence and unlawful interference with journalists’ professional activities,” but no charges have been brought.
“Georgian authorities meanwhile announced that they would award medals to the Interior Ministry officials whom the West had sanctioned for their role in the violent crackdown. Honoring these officials while investigations are pending shows contempt for the obligation to hold people accountable for the violence, Human Rights Watch said.
Georgia is a party to a number of human rights treaties including the European Convention on Human Rights, which imposes obligations on the government to respect the right to freedom of assembly and to refrain in all circumstances from engaging in prohibited ill-treatment. The government also has a duty to investigate and remedy violations of those obligations.
Georgia has similar obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In its recent judgment against Georgia, the European Court of Human Rights reiterated that for accountability purposes, when national authorities deploy masked police officers, they “should be required to visibly display some distinctive insignia, such as a warrant number.”
The authorities should immediately call a halt to the police violence, respect the rights to peaceful assembly and expression, and promptly and effectively investigate all allegations of beatings, torture and other ill-treatment, Human Rights Watch said. Such investigations should ensure not only individual accountability, but command responsibility for the excessive use of force.
Georgia’s international partners should seek independent investigations into the post-election violence,” reads the report.
Human Rights Watch calls on the EU member states to sanction officials responsible for authorizing and carrying out beatings and violence against Georgia’s protesters. At the same time, the EU should step-up, flexible democracy support for civil society and the media.
“Georgian authorities should free all those detained solely for the peaceful exercise of their right to assembly,” Williamson said. “There needs to be a reckoning and accountability for the broken bones and other injuries police intentionally inflicted on so many people.”
