TBILISI, April 14 – The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, met non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Tbilisi on Tuesday, discussing protests, detainees and recent legal changes.
Interpressnews reported that the commissioner met representatives of civic society, including Transparency International Georgia, the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association and the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics.
After the session with NGOs ended, Tamar Oniani, chair of the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association, said the discussion covered the state of human rights in the country, including restrictive legislative acts that she said were aimed both at limiting civic space and at restricting journalists’ work. She also said the groups raised the effectiveness of investigations into cases involving what she described as systemic torture and the use of unidentified chemical substances against demonstrators.
Later in the day, O’Flaherty met Public Defender Levan Ioseliani in Tbilisi. After that meeting, Ioseliani told reporters that the conversation touched on people detained during protests, jailed politicians and jailed journalist Mzia Amaghlobeli. He said questions were raised about whether people involved in beatings had been brought to justice. He also said the talks covered the situation of organizations in Georgia and recent legislative changes, including amendments to the law on grants and to the administrative offenses code.
The public defender’s office later said in a press release that the sides discussed the overall state of human rights and freedoms in Georgia, with special attention to freedom of assembly and expression, alleged ill-treatment of detainees at protests, and flaws in investigative steps. According to the office, they also discussed whether civil society organizations can operate freely and the rules governing access to grant funding.
The ombudsman’s office added that the meeting also covered prison conditions, as well as the human rights situation in occupied Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region, in villages along the conflict line, and among displaced people. It said the visit was intended to review developments since O’Flaherty’s previous trip last year.
