Senior MP Speaks Tough on Deportation of Georgians

79 Georgians remain in detention centers in Russia awaiting deportation, Georgian MP Nika Gvaramia said on December 4.

MP Gvaramia, who is a chairman of the parliamentary commission that was set up to look into cases of human rights abuses against Georgians in Russia, said that the Georgian authorities are now considering sending a plane to Russia to assist detainees, who are accused of migration offenses, in returning to Georgia.

Gvaramia said that Manana Jabelia, 51, who died in a detention center in Moscow on December 2, six weeks after she was arrested, ?became a victim of the Russian authorities.?

?I can say openly, without any hesitation, that Jabelia was murdered by the Russian authorities. She was a refugee from Abkhazia and stateless person and no one had a right to deport her, and even if she was there illegally she still had a right to be treated humanely. Officials there [in Moscow] could have at least given her medicine,? MP Gvaramia said on a political talk show aired on Tbilisi-based Imedi television on December 4.

Relatives of Jabelia told Georgian television stations that she suffered from heart problems.

Tengiz Togonidze, a 48-year-old Georgian citizen, died of an asthma attack on October 17 in Domodedovo airport in Moscow before being deported to Georgia.

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