Mass Protests in Georgia Burst out After TV Show Prison Torture Videos

Georgian Minister of Corrections, Probation, and Legal Assistance Khatuna Kalmakhelidze has resigned, one day after television channels controlled by political interests opposed to President Mikheil Saakashvili aired videos purportedly showing the abuse of prisoners at a jail in Tbilisi.

The demonstrations against the inhuman acts were held in several Georgian cities and towns.

At a demonstration against prison abuse in the capital on September 18, Shorena Shaverdashvili, editor in chief of Liberali magazine, noted that such abuse is endemic in the Georgian prison system.

“This is not the first incident of torture in prisons,” she said. “Year after year, there are documented cases in the ombudsmen's report about tortured prisoners. In last year's report alone, there are 140 different identified cases of torture or mishandling prisoners. So this is really a continuation of a tendency and a really horrendous continuation of that tendency,” she said.

Shaverdashivili called on the ministers of interior and justice to resign.

Tea Tsulukiani, an activist with the opposition Georgian Dream movement of billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, told Reuters on September 18 that she blames Saakashvili's government for the abuse:

“Today the Georgian public saw material which shows that our prisoners are tortured in Georgian prisons, and that they are subjected to cruelty as well as inhuman and degrading treatment. In accordance with the European convention, we call all of this treatment torture. And [President Mikheil] Saakashvili's government is torturing people in Georgian prisons.”

It is not clear when most of the videos were shot, but one was dated August 24. They show dozens of guards and officers either participating in or encouraging the abuse of prisoners.

The video of police brutality against prisoners allegedly shot in a Georgian prison

One video shows a prisoner weeping while being raped with a stick.

Arrests Made

Georgia's Interior Ministry immediately announced the arrests of three officials at Tbilisi's Prison No. 8.

However, the government claims that some prison officials organized the abuse and its filming at the request of an inmate named Tamaz Tamazashvili, who has connections with Georgian Dream.

Police say $17,000 and video-recording equipment were found in the office of one of the arrested prison officials.

Tamazashvili's son is a Georgian Dream parliament candidate in the town of Dedoplistskaro, and Tamazashvili is the father-in-law of Ivanishvili senior aide Irakli Garibashvili.

Tamazashvili was arrested shortly after Ivanishvili announced his entry into politics in October 2011 on weapons charges. He is serving a 3 1/2 year term, and Ivanishvili has repeatedly labeled him a “political prisoner.”

In its criticism of Ivanishvili's political grouping, Saakashvili's ruling National Movement party has made reference to Tamazashvili, who worked in the Interior Ministry in the period before the 2003 Rose Revolution, and it has also featured him in an attack advertisement.

Georgia will hold parliamentary elections on October 1.

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