Public Defender Studies Election-Related Violations

Sozar Subari, the Georgian Public Defender, said on June 3 his office was studying alleged human rights violations related to the elections and the findings would be available in the next few days.

“We are studying all the cases; what was happening before the elections, on elections day and what is happening since the elections,” Subari said. “Over the past week we have been holding talks with officials from the OSCE [in Vienna], giving them the real picture beyond the democracy facade. In many cases everyone knows everything very well, but for some reason proper assessments are not being made.”

He said that restricting freedom of speech was part of “a deliberate policy” observed. Another part is “what we see and hear in recent days, with people being attacked and beaten by masked men just because they have dissenting political opinions.”