Sozar Subari: Georgia has "prisoners of conscience"

In the opinion of Ombudsman of Georgia Sozar Subari, there are "prisoners of conscience" in Georgia. Mr Subari has stated this fact today during the video bridge Tbilisi-Baku-Moscow held by human rights activists of the three countries.

"The Georgian legislation has no such definition as a 'political prisoner'. But I've announced more than once that the young people detained for their participation in protest actions are prisoners of conscience," the IA "News-Georgia" quotes Mr Subari.

The Ombudsman has refrained to assess the "Giorgadze Party members' case" - currently, 14 persons have been convicted to various imprisonment terms on charges of preparing an armed revolt. As he explained, the Ombudsman's office is now studying the materials of the case, and the official opinion will be expressed later. "At this stage I can assert that during the study we have revealed many remedial violations in running the case," Mr Subari has added.

At the same time the Ombudsman called Irakliy Batiashvili, ex-head of the Georgian Security Council, who had been sentenced to seven years in prison for "intellectual assistance" to Emzar Kvitsiani, former representative of President of Georgia (in Shevardnadze times) in the Kodor Gorge, who declared last summer an armed disobedience to the authorities, to be an "absolutely illegitimate prisoner." "This case was falsified so much that I can say nothing but 'an illegitimate prisoner' in relation to Mr Batiashvili," the Ombudsman has emphasized.

As a whole, according to the Ombudsman's estimate, the main problem with human rights in Georgia is "that courts in Georgia are not free." "The court's verdict is practically completely dependent on the prosecutor's office," Mr Subari has noted.