Tskhinvali Releases 17-Year-Old, Detained for Allegedly Crossing Administrative Border

17-year-old local Georgian resident, who had to spend a day in detention in breakaway South Ossetia, was released on Saturday.

Joni Gogichaishvili was detained close to the villages of Bershueti and Gduleti on Friday afternoon for what Tskhinvali and Russian troops call it “violation of South Ossetia’s state border”.

The EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM), which has unarmed monitors on the ground without being able to access the breakaway region, welcomed “swift release” of the underage detainee and said that it facilitated the release through “exchange of information and dialogue between security actors” on both sides of the administrative boundary line. 

Cases of detention of local residents along the administrative boundary by the Russian border guard troops for “violation of the state border” occur frequently; in most of the cases detainees are released few days later after being fined.

109 people were detained this year – two of them still remain in detention in Tskhinvali, according to the Georgian State Security Service.

Total of 163 people were detained by the Russian border guard troops at the breakaway South Ossetia’s administrative boundary in 2015, according to the Georgian State Security Service.
 
Representatives from Tbilisi and Tskhinvali discuss regularly cases of detentions and freedom of movement at meetings of Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM) in the village of Ergneti on the administrative boundary, close to Tskhinvali, which are held with the facilitation of EUMM and OSCE special representative. The next IPRM meeting in Ergneti is scheduled for September 28.