Rights defenders criticize scale of amnesty in Georgia

The pardoning by Georgian President of only five prisoners amid hundreds of them, who hoped for amnesty, has been treated as unserious by rights defenders, while the refusal to pardon Archpriest Mamaladze – as unjustified.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on January 6, on the occasion of Christmas, Salome Zurabishvili, Georgian President, pardoned five persons, but not Archpriest, Giorgi Mamaladze.

Tornike Mamaladze, Giorgi's brother, is sure that the Patriarch is afraid of uncovering by the convicted Archpriest. Giorgi Mamaladze knows about homosexual relationships and financial frauds in the Patriarchy, and the head of the church is afraid of publicizing this information, the brother has stated.

Meanwhile, Nodar Kharshiladze, a political analyst, believes that Tornike's statement is speculative.

In his turn, Gela Nikoleishvili, a rights defender and a member of the Georgian Bar Association, asserts that there were grounds for Mamaladze's pardoning, although he doubted the Tornike Mamaladze's statement about the existence of serious compromising facts against the supreme hierarchs of the Georgian Church.

Based on the pardoning practice, Mamaladze should have been released, said Liya Mukhashavriya, the head of the NGO "Human Rights Priority".

"He committed no crime; he had only plotted one; and an influential religious organization, the Georgian Orthodox Church, stood up for him," she has explained.

Ms Mukhashavriya has also pointed to the negligible number of those pardoned.