I was greatly concerned to learn that a number of human rights defenders and others received summonses last week for a court hearing in relation to posts they had made on social media about the ruling Georgian Dream Party. Among those summonsed was Baia Pataraia, a woman human rights defender and director of the human rights NGO Sapari.
In August last year I raised concerns with the Georgian government regarding intimidation of human rights defenders in the context of the introduction of the Foreign Agents Law, and targeted attacks against Ms Pataraia. In one such incident, unidentified individuals broke into her apartment building and scrawled her name on the walls accompanied by swear words; as well as ‘foreign agent’ and ‘sold on money’. Her elderly parents, ex-husband and minor son have all received threatening and intimidating messages related to her human rights work. I regret that I have received no response from the Georgian government to my letter.
On June 11, Ms Pataraia and up to 20 other individuals were summoned to court for ‘insulting’ MPs from the ruling party, charged under a new provision in the Administrative Offences Code of Georgia. Article 173 of the Code prohibits “verbal abuse, insult or offensive conduct towards a public official” and may be punished by a fine of up to 4,000GEL (approx €1,300) or up to 45 days of administrative detention.
The use of this new provision, only adopted on 6 February, against so many human rights defenders, journalists and others raises a concern that it is being used as means to silence critics of the government.
I will be following closely the hearing scheduled for tomorrow, 18 June.
