Alleged police beatings on a deaf boy in Tbilisi shocked the nation and uncovered police brutality in Georgia

Like other kids, the 17-year-old teenager was having fun in a subway station in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, fooling around on the escalator.

However, unlike most children, the boy was deaf and would not hear when the police ordered him to stop before grabbing him and dragging him to a small room nearby that served as the police office.

In eyewitness video uploaded to social media earlier this week, one of the two officers appears to punch and punch the boy, who is trying to protect himself from the beating, while the other officer looks on impassively.

have the pictures shocked many in Georgiabut didn’t surprise those monitoring police abuse in the Caucasus nation of some 3.7 million.

“This is hardly an isolated incident of police brutality, and the authorities must respond quickly, thoroughly and comprehensively to address the ongoing problem of lack of accountability for such abuses,” Giorgi Gogia, a South Caucasus researcher at Rights Watch, said in written comments to RFE/RL.

A day after the Tbilisi incident, more videos surfaced of more alleged police ill-treatment in Georgia. This time in the western town of Zugdidi, where a police officer is said to have repeatedly hit a woman during a dispute.

All three officers involved in the two incidents were arrested and charged amid a public outcry. On January 26th Rallies against police brutalityorganized by the opposition United National Movement, took place in Tbilisi, Zugdidi, Batumi, Gori and Telavi.

While authorities have acted quickly, they have been accused in the past of being hesitant to investigate police ill-treatment. So much so that in recent years more than a dozen Georgians have turned to the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to seek justice.

The delay could continue after the ruling Georgian Dream party, despite concerns from the West and international bodies including Washington and the United Nations, managed to get Parliament to pass legislation in December 2021 to abolish the independent body associated with the investigating police abuse.

Two incidents in two days

“He’s deaf and dumb? What if I make him talk now? I’ll get him to talk now,” the official is heard saying as he escorts the teenager to a small office in Tbilisi’s Isani metro station on January 24.

Tamar Kordzaia, an independent MP, echoed what others were saying, writing on Twitter: “#PoliceBrutality is rampant and getting worse every day.”

“Impunity for abuses by law enforcement agencies remained an ongoing problem,” Human Rights Watch said in its recent chapter on Georgia World Report 2022adding that in 2021, 133 complaints of ill-treatment by prison staff or the police had been reported to the Office of the Ombudsman of Georgia.

The incident also highlighted the “systemic oppression” faced by people with special needs in Georgian society, said Giorgi Akhmeteli, president of the NGO Accessible Environment For All.

“There is a feeling in society that they have the power to make the disabled walk, make the deaf talk, open the eyes of the blind. They often tell us, ‘Don’t use a wheelchair, you’ll get used to crawling and you’ll be able to stand… I had the same feeling on this case – the policeman just couldn’t accept that the boy couldn’t speak’. , said Ahmeteli told the Georgian service of RFE/RL.

A friend of the victim who witnessed the beating told news website Tabula that the teenager was arrested for sitting on an escalator rail and that he was kicked by a police officer before the attack in the room began.

A day later, on January 25, video footage emerged in Zugdidi, about 320 kilometers west of Tbilisi, showing a police officer beating a woman.

The officer, identified only as GB, who knew the woman, had “repeatedly punched his friend in the face during a personal argument,” according to a statement from the Georgia attorney general’s office, adding that the officer was arrested and charged with assault was charged.

Look elsewhere for justice

Frustrated by the lack of justice at home, many victims of alleged police brutality in Georgia have turned to the ECtHR.

“For years, cases of police violence against citizens have been pending and Georgia has already lost a number of cases in Strasbourg because such cases are not effectively investigated here,” said Eka Kobesashvili, a lawyer with the NGO Human Rights House the Georgian service of RFE/RL.

Between 2004 and 2021, the ECtHR heard 14 cases about alleged police brutality and whether such cases have been properly investigated. In 12 of those cases, the ECtHR found that the authorities had failed to properly investigate the allegations.

Demonstrators demonstrate against police brutality in Zugdidi on January 26

In 2019, the ECtHR ordered the Georgian government Nikoloz Goguadze to pay 10,000 euros ($11,150) in compensation for the mistreatment he was subjected to by police in Tbilisi in May 2011 in a conspiracy, the so-called Kintsvisi case, which government critics have called a hoax because it is based on dubious conspiracies allegations with little or no publicly presented evidence. Allegations of police abuse have not been properly investigated by Georgian authorities despite an eight-year investigation into the matter.

One person Goguadze singled out was police investigator Mariani Choloiani. Apparently unhappy with his answers, Goguadze said Choloiani would walk out to give way to other officers, who would then enter the interrogation room and hit him.

Choloiani also played a role in another case of alleged police abuse in December 2019, when Luka Siradze, a 15-year-old boy from Tbilisi, committed suicide by jumping from the ninth floor of his family’s high-rise apartment.

As in the case of Goguadze, Choloiani is said to have been a key member of the police squad that interrogated Siradze about allegedly being part of a gang that sprayed explosive devices on buildings in the Georgian capital.

Unlike the Goguadze case, this time Choloiani was charged and found guilty of extracting a coerced confession from Siradze. Choloiani was sentenced to three years in prison and was released in August 2021 after serving only half of her sentence from the Special Penitentiary Service of Georgia “for exemplary behavior in prison.”

“She was probably told that she had to go to prison and be released early. This is a clear example that members of the system can get away with anything, they have the right to do anything,” says Luka Siradze’s brother Beka Siradze, who had RFE/RL communicated.

Police Abuse Thrive?

Efforts to clean up the system recently suffered a setback, activists and others warned, when Georgian Dream used its majority in parliament to pass legislation to abolish the State Inspector’s Office, an independent body tasked with investigating police abuse is.

On December 25, 2021, the party introduced the bill to replace the office charged with investigating crimes committed by law enforcement agencies and personal data protection cases with two new bodies.

To justify the action, Mamuka Mdinaraze, a member of the Georgian Dream party, said investigative and personal data protection functions unified under the former agency were “incompatible”.

Alleged police beatings on a deaf boy in Tbilisi shocked the nation and uncovered police brutality in Georgia

On January 13, the controversial law was signed by Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili, despite appeals from NGOs and Western governments to reject it.

The dismantling of “one of the most credible, independent and authoritative institutions in Georgia” sent a “terrifying” message to the country’s human rights-oriented institutions, the United Nations Country Team in Georgia said in a statement on January 14th.

“It was done without consultations not only with civil society in Georgia and Georgia’s international partners, but even with the [State] The inspectorate was not consulted beforehand,” Gogia explained.

Among the critics of the legislation was US Ambassador Kelly Degnan who said it “undermined government accountability”.

There is still a chance that the move will be undone. Georgian State Inspector Londa Toloraia said earlier this month that she would appeal the move to both the Constitutional Court of Georgia and the ECtHR.

Based on reports by RFE/RL’s Georgian service, including correspondent Nastasia Arabic, and written by Tony Wesolowsky in Prague.