Following Georgia's disputed elections, in which the Georgian Dream party won, concerns about the deteriorating situation for LGBTQI+ people in the country are only growing, Rainbow Migration officials said this week.
“In the run-up to the election, the Georgian Dream party ran an explicitly anti-LGBTQI+ campaign that aimed to exploit homophobia for political purposes, in particular by introducing new repressive laws that severely restricted the rights of LGBTQI+ people,” you write .
The legislative package on the protection of family values and minors was adopted by the Georgian Parliament on September 17 and signed by Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili from the Georgian Dream party on October 3, after the Georgian President rejected it.
Concern is growing in the UK over Georgia's inclusion on the list of “safe” countries, from which protection and human rights claims are automatically declared inadmissible in exceptional cases. The previous Conservative government added Georgia and India to the list of “safe” states in April 2024, despite there being ample evidence of rights abuses against minorities in both countries, an issue raised by the Lords when considering the regulations.
“There is growing evidence of the danger faced by LGBTQI+ people in Georgia, and the situation has only gotten worse in recent months,” said Minesh Parekh, policy and public affairs manager at Rainbow Migration. “We urge the new government to remove Georgia from the list of 'safe' countries to which it can return people and to signal to the world that it will not tolerate anti-LGBT hatred.”
In November 2023, the UK government announced that draft legislation was being prepared to add Georgia – along with India – to the list of “safe states” under Section 80AA of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (as amended by Section 59). Illegal Migration Act 2023). In December 2023, the Country Policy and Information Note: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression, Georgia V1.0 was published, and on April 17, 2024, Georgia was added – along with India – to the list of countries from which protection and human rights apply In exceptional cases, claims to rights are automatically declared inadmissible. This change was made by statutory instrument; The new legal instrument could affect claims made on or after the entry into force of Section 6 of the Illegal Migration Act (IMA) and before the entry into force of Section 59, as well as claims made after the full entry into force of Section 59 of the IMA Force.
The House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, as well as civil society organizations in the UK and internationally, have expressed serious concerns about Georgia's inclusion on the list of “safe states”, stressing that it increases the risk of people with substantiated cases Rights claims can be attributed to mistreatment or persecution.
A recent commentary published by Asylos and Rainbow Migration, together with a research report by Asylos on the situation of LGBTQI+ people in Georgia, shows the incoherence of considering Georgia as a “safe” state within the international protection content and underlines the Ministry of Interior's country policy and information notice :
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The normal role of hostile rhetoric from public officials in promoting societal violence against LGBTQI+ people has not been fully acknowledged, not just “on occasion” or in the context of Pride events, but in everyday life.
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Minimized information that points to the existence of deeply rooted negative societal attitudes and violence towards LGBTQI+ people.
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Information was not fully taken into account that shows Georgian authorities have repeatedly and seriously failed to protect LGBTQI+ people and hold perpetrators of violence to account
