8 NGOs issue a statement regarding the "problematic trends" revealed in the process of protecting the rights of persons arrested at the rallies
Non-governmental organizations, which protect the rights of people arrested at the actions, name the problematic trends that they have identified in the process. Among them, in the statement issued by 8 non-governmental organizations, it is mentioned that there is a problem of timely receiving information about the whereabouts of detainees; Also, unjustified extension of the detention period and excessive use of force by the law enforcement officers during the detention.
"8 Georgian non-governmental organizations continue to protect the rights of persons arrested during the protests against the "Russian law" in April-May. From April 15 to May 9, the unified hotline of non-governmental organizations received reports about 134 arrested persons. All of them are arrested on the basis of articles 166 (petty hooliganism) and 173 (disobedience to the lawful request of a police officer) of the Code of Administrative Offenses. Upon receiving the message on the hotline, we, Georgian non-governmental organizations, searched for the detainees in the isolation cells and met them, described the facts of the violation of their rights and explained their rights.
As of now, the following problematic trends have been identified: the problem of receiving information about the whereabouts of detainees in a timely manner - the detainee has the right to inform his family/lawyer about his whereabouts immediately after his arrest. Despite this, most of the detainees did not have the opportunity to properly communicate with their family members or lawyers. After receiving information about the arrest, the lawyers had to "search" for the detainees throughout the night. Often, it was possible to determine the whereabouts of the detainees only after visiting the place in various detention facilities, including those located outside Tbilisi (Telavi, Mtskheta, Dusheti, Gori, Khashuri). It was also problematic to get information about those detainees who were transferred to medical institutions instead of isolation cells due to injuries.
Unjustified extension of the detention period - administrative detention was mostly extended for a maximum period of 48 hours based on a template justification. As a rule, the template justification for the extension of detention included an indication only that the extension of detention was necessary to obtain additional evidence, however, during the trial, it was clear that no additional evidence was obtained during this period. Moreover, in most cases, after 48 hours of detention, the law enforcement agencies did not even bring the detainees to court after the time limit had expired. Until now, most of the cases have not been brought to court.
Excessive use of force by law enforcement officers during arrest - it is alarming that the majority of detainees pointed to facts of physical and verbal abuse by law enforcement officers during arrest. Several detainees had to be treated in a medical facility due to the severity of their injuries. Regarding these facts, the information was provided to the Special Investigation Service, which stated that the investigation has been started on the possible abuse of official authority by violence against the participants of the protest, however, nothing is known about its results so far. The network of non-governmental organizations currently protects up to 30 victims.
It should be noted that most of the arrested persons had body injuries of various degrees, which, according to their own explanation, were inflicted by the law enforcement officers during the arrest.
Consideration of cases in court - for the time being, Tbilisi City Court has submitted the cases of persons arrested by the Ministry of Internal Affairs on April 16-17. In the court of first instance, the review of 12 cases in which the lawyers of non-governmental organizations represent the interests of detainees has been completed. According to the available results, the court considered all persons to be administrative offenders and applied quite severe sanctions to them. In particular, one person was sentenced to administrative imprisonment (for a period of 5 days), which in this case is the most severe sanction, while other persons were sentenced to fines ranging from 2000 GEL to 2600 GEL. Only one person was given verbal feedback. The total number of fines for this time is 20,700 GEL.
The discussed cases show that the judges made decisions to recognize the participants of the peaceful protest as lawbreakers without any objective evidence. Moreover, in some cases, the detainees themselves submitted video recordings, in which it was clearly seen that no administrative offense was committed by them during their detention. In addition, there were cases when the explanations of the persons called as witnesses by the representatives of the law enforcement body did not correspond to the content of the video recordings presented by them in court.
The Legal Aid Network of non-governmental organizations continues to protect the rights of those arrested during protests against Russian law. Yes to Europe, not to Russian law!", the statement said.
