UN Committee Calls on Georgia to Suspend Court Order Seeking NGO Beneficiary Data
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has called on the Georgian authorities to suspend a court order demanding confidential data about an underage beneficiary from Sapari, a local women’s rights group.
The Committee, which monitors states’ compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, granted Sapari’s request and “called on Georgia to refrain from requesting, disclosing, or handing over personal information about the beneficiary to any party, including the Anti-Corruption Bureau,” the group said in a July 18 statement.
Calling the decision “crucial,” Sapari added that it set a legal precedent: “The swift reaction of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child means the activation of an international legal mechanism to stop the repression against Georgian non-governmental organizations, and at the same time, it shows that the international community is paying close attention to Georgia’s fulfillment of its obligations and will not overlook the persecution of civil society.”
Sapari also noted that the first time the CRC applied such a measure was in the 2024 Ninotsminda orphanage case, where the Committee urged Georgia to compensate the victims, issue a public apology, and investigate the perpetrators.
The CRC’s move comes after Georgia’s Anti-Corruption Bureau – widely seen as controlled by the ruling party – requested extensive data from local organizations and their beneficiaries. Eight groups, including Sapari, have been targeted with such inspection requests after the Tbilisi City Court approved the Anti-Corruption Bureau’s requests. The court orders cited the provisions from three Georgian laws to justify the Bureau’s authority: the Law on Grants, the Law on Political Associations of Citizens, and the Law on Combating Corruption.
The targeted organizations have publicly refused to hand over sensitive data about their beneficiaries. “We are not going to betray the trust of the citizens under our protection, even if it leads to our persecution and imprisonment,” they said in a joint statement on June 18.
Amnesty International, the global human rights watchdog, said the legal actions against CSOs are an example of the Georgian authorities’ “escalating repression of the rights to freedom of expression and association” and the “weaponization of the country’s justice system and the Anti-Corruption Bureau to target and crackdown on human rights defenders, activists and independent civil society organizations.”
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