On May 14, 2025, civil society organizations presented a documentation report titled “The Human Rights Crisis in Georgia Following the 2024 Parliamentary Elections.” The report covers serious and systemic human rights violations that occurred between November 28, 2024, and February 28, 2025, aimed at suppressing peaceful and legitimate protests.

The documentation process involved the collaboration of 11 civil society organizations. The findings are based on both publicly available information and evidence provided by protest participants and victims of violence, including in-depth interviews.

A total of 117 individuals were interviewed, 77.7% of whom (91 people) reported having been subjected to violence and ill-treatment by police forces. The report details the forms, intensity, consistency, and scale of police violence, indicating that torture and ill-treatment are widespread and systemic.

Additionally, the report examines numerous instances of unlawful and disproportionate violations of the right to freedom of assembly. Alongside physical violence, police forces made extensive use of special means, often in ways that posed serious threats to life and health.

The report also analyzes violations targeting freedom of expression and the media. Notably, media representatives became a particular target of police violence—driven by smear campaigns orchestrated by the ruling party, Georgian Dream, and by the impunity surrounding crimes committed against journalists. A total of 108 cases of violence against media representatives were documented.

The report further identifies the instrumentalization of administrative and criminal justice systems against protest participants. Administrative proceedings were systematically used to unjustly punish demonstrators, including victims of police violence, through arbitrary imposition of liability.

Moreover, multiple criminal cases were actively pursued in court against activists detained during the protests in April–May and again in November–December 2024. The use of criminal charges in response to protest activity has effectively criminalized peaceful protest and restricted freedom of assembly. As of February 2025, over 60 individuals face criminal prosecution—10 of them in relation to the spring 2024 protests, and 52 in connection with protests held between November 2024 and February 2025.

The report also highlights other forms of repression, including instances of enforced disappearances, unlawful searches of homes, workplaces, and personal property, the discriminatory dismissal of public servants, and the abuse of legislative authority.

Finally, the report assesses the responsibility of specific state institutions and senior officials in carrying out systemic repression. The lack of effective response to serious human rights violations—combined with ineffective investigations, a biased judiciary, the open endorsement and encouragement of violence by high-ranking officials, and new repressive legislative initiatives—demonstrates that the violent suppression of dissent and restriction of human rights are systemic in nature. All three branches of government, captured by Georgian Dream, are complicit. The resulting impunity—both institutional and individual—exacerbated by the failure to investigate violations effectively, has completely eroded public trust in Georgia’s justice system.