8 Georgian NGOs continue to protect the rights of those detained during the protests against the “Russian law” in April-May. From April 15 to May 9, the joint hotline of NGOs received reports about 134 detainees. All of them were detained under Articles 166 (petty hooliganism) and 173 (disobedience to the lawful request of the police officer) of the Administrative Offences Code. Upon receiving a notification, we, Georgian NGOs, searched for the detainees in the detention facilities and visited them, described the violations of their rights, and informed them of their rights.

As of now, the following problematic trends have been identified:

Timely provision of information about the whereabouts of the detainees

A detainee has the right to inform his/her family/lawyer of his/her whereabouts immediately after his/her arrest.[1] Despite this, most detainees had no opportunity to communicate properly with either family members or lawyers. After receiving information about the arrest, lawyers had to spend the whole night “searching” for the detainees. Often, the whereabouts of the detainees could only be established after on-site visits to various detention centers, including those outside Tbilisi (Telavi, Mtskheta, Dusheti, Gori, Khashuri). It was also problematic to obtain information about the detainees who were transferred to medical institutions instead of detention facilities due to their injuries.

Unjustified extension of the detention term

Administrative detention was mostly extended for a maximum period of 48 hours, on the basis of improper justification. As a rule, the justification for the extension of detention included only an indication that the extension of detention was necessary to obtain additional evidence, however, during the court hearing, it became clear that no additional evidence had been obtained during that period. Moreover, in most cases, after the expiration of the 48-hour detention period, the law enforcement agency did not even bring the detainees to the court. Most cases have not been brought to the court to this day.

Abuse of power by law enforcement officers during arrests

It is alarming that the majority of detainees indicate that they were physically and verbally abused by law enforcement officers during detention. Several detainees had to be treated in a medical facility due to the severity of their injuries. Information regarding these facts was also provided to the Special Investigation Service, which stated that an investigation had been launched into the cases of alleged abuse of power against protesters, however, nothing is known about the results so far. The Network of NGOs is currently defending up to 30 victims.

It is noteworthy that most of the detainees had injuries of varying degrees, which, according to them, were inflicted by law enforcement officers during the arrests.

Consideration of cases in the court

At this time, the cases of persons detained by the Ministry of Internal Affairs on April 16-17 have been brought to Tbilisi City Court. The consideration of 12 cases, in which lawyers of non-governmental organizations represented the interests of the detainees, has been completed in the first instance court. According to the available results, the court considered all persons to be administrative violators and applied rather strict sanctions against them. In particular, administrative detention (for a period of 5 days) was ordered for one person, which in this case is the most severe sanction, while other persons were fined - ranging from GEL 2,000 to GEL 2,600. Only one person was given a verbal warning. The total amount of fines so far amounts to GEL 20,700.

The cases considered by the court show that judges[2] made decisions to declare the participants in peaceful protests as violators mainly without any objective evidence. Moreover, in some cases, the detainees themselves presented video footage, which clearly showed that they had not committed any administrative offence at the time of their detention. In addition, there were cases when the explanations of persons summoned as witnesses by law enforcement officials did not correspond to the content of footage presented by them.  

The NGOs’ Legal Aid Network continues to protect the rights of those detained during protests held against the Russian law.

Yes to Europe, no to the Russian law!

Legal Aid Network member organizations:

Democratic Research Institute (DRI)

Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA)

Transparency International - Georgia (TI)

Social Justice Center (SJC)

Georgian Democracy Initiative (GDI)

Rights Georgia (RG)

International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED)

Human Rights Center (HRC)

Women's Initiatives Supporting Group (WISG)

Partnership for Human Rights (PHR)

Civil Society Foundation (CSF)