Rights defenders criticize law enforcers' awarding after dispersing protests in Tbilisi

The Georgian Government has decided to award the Order of Honour to eleven high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA). Human rights defenders have pointed out that on November 28, MIA's employees had held a deliberate dispersal of the protest; and one of the awardees was involved in the abuse of detainees.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that protests against the suspension of negotiations on the country's accession to the European Union (EU) have been on in Georgia since November 28. It is reported that by December 9, more than 400 people had been detained.

An international non-governmental human rights organization has reported that the November 28 protest action was deliberately dispersed; it was the first one in the protest cycle held by supporters of European integration. The NGO has come to this conclusion based on the information provided by protesters to their advocates. The Georgian MIA had predefined brutal methods of dispersing protesters and a system of torture aimed to suppress the peaceful demonstrations, the NGO has noted.

In particular, the MIA used unknown substances dissolved in a stream of water, and spraying pepper gas against protesters. After using water cannons, special agents launched capsules with asphyxiating gas at tens of thousands of protesters, which made it impossible to breathe and see, caused panic, and created a real danger of a crush.

Besides, detainees were treated inhumanely – they were beaten up during and after detention. "With particular fury, they used to beat detainees up on faces, necks, eyes, ribs, kidneys: special agents robbed detainees – they took away clothes, shoes, mobile phones, bags, wallets, glasses and other personal belongings," the report says.

The NGO reports a case when detainees were beaten up inside a car, after which a capsule with gas was thrown into the car and the doors were closed. There were also cases when beaten and robbed detainees were doused with cold water, threatened with murder and rape.

Human rights defenders have noted that photos and videos of detainees' humiliation were made; they were forced to incriminate themselves, several times such cases were filmed by Zviad Kharazishvili. The detainees were not provided with timely medical care.