Public Defender’s report: Surge in long-term illegal detentions by occupying regimes in 2025
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Georgian Public Defender Levan Ioseliani presented the 2025 Report on the State of Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms to the Parliament of Georgia.
According to the Public Defender’s Office, Ioseliani began his address by reviewing the situation of conflict-affected populations, both in government-controlled areas and in the occupied territories. The Ombudsman discussed violations of property rights and the ongoing process of illegal so-called “borderization” by occupying forces.
He noted that during the reporting year, Russian occupation forces laid more than 60 kilometers of barbed wire fencing along the occupation line in the direction of the Tskhinvali region, while in the direction of occupied Abkhazia the total length of artificial barriers exceeds 50 kilometers.
“According to official data, in 2025, occupation regimes detained 32 individuals in the Tskhinvali region direction and 40 individuals in the Abkhazia direction on charges of illegal so-called border crossing. Cases of prolonged unlawful detention have also increased.
Access to education in the native language remains one of the most significant challenges. In all schools in Gali and Akhalgori, instruction in Georgian has been completely banned in primary grades, and the native language has been reduced to a subject of foreign language and literature, resulting in a year-by-year decline in student numbers.
Given the inadequate medical services and infrastructure in the occupied territories, insufficient qualifications of medical personnel, and difficulties in patient movement, the ‘Referral Service’ program operating in government-controlled Georgia remains critically important for residents of these areas.
In 2025, under the Referral Service program, 1,406 patients from occupied territories received funding treatment in government-controlled Georgia, including 1,131 individuals from Abkhazia and 260 from the Tskhinvali region,” the report states.