European Court starts considering Georgia-versus-Russia claim

Today, the European Court on Human Rights (ECtHR) has held its first session on the claim lodged by Georgia and charging Russia with regular violation of the rights of Georgian migrants, when they were deported from Russia in 2006-2007.

The deportation of Georgian started after the so-called "espionage scandal" in September 2006, when relations of two countries grew noticeably worse. Russia deported to Georgia several hundreds of illegal migrants; in this context, Georgian officials accused Russian authorities of ethnic cleansings and even genocide against Georgian natives. The Russian party had persistently rejected the charges; however, human rights defenders also marked a sharp splash of xenophobia and national intolerance against natives of Georgia.

The "Georgia Online" Agency reports that after the session judges retired to consider the eligibility of Georgia's complaint.

According to the data of Georgian frontier services, presented in the course of the hearing by Tina Burdzhaliani, First Vice-Minister of Justice of Georgia, in July, August and September 2006, 80, 102 and 82 citizens of Georgia were sent out of Russia, accordingly, and from October 2006 to January 2007 - 783, 850, 709 and 578 persons, accordingly.

Georgia accuses Russia of regular violation of rights of Georgian migrants in the process of deporting them from Russia. Tbilisi is expressing its discontent with the conditions, in which the detainees, at least 2380 persons, were kept, and will try to prove that intolerable treatment resulted in several deaths. In the course of deportation several persons died in Moscow's isolation facilities and accommodation-distribution centres, or in the course convoying them from other Russian cities to the capital.

Besides, as the applicant asserts, suspension of transport and postal communications with Georgia blocked access to legal defence for natives of Georgia.

The Russian party asserts that there was no mass deportation, and each migrant's case was individually decided by the court, and emphasizes that only those citizens of Georgia who had breached the RF's migration legislation were deported.

The decision on eligibility of the complaint will be announced later. The date is unknown, as the "Echo Moskvy" Radio reports.