Datashvili Examined in Cell, Skipping Activist’s Forced Transfer to Psychiatric Facility
Detained activist Nino Datashvili and her lawyers said experts were sneaked into her cell to conduct a psychiatric evaluation via interview, in what appears to be an attempt by prosecutors to bypass a controversial court order mandating the activist’s forced transfer to a psychiatric facility.
On August 2, lawyers of Nino Datashvili, an activist and teacher detained on disputed charges of assaulting a public official, said the court granted the prosecutor’s request to mandate the activist’s forced examination in a psychiatric facility for 20 days. The order was based on Datashvili’s 2019 medical records indicating “emotional lability” as a symptom accompanying a serious and painful spinal condition.
The order drew widespread condemnation, including from lawyers and mental health professionals, who saw it as an inhuman treatment and a revival of Soviet-era repressive practices of punitive psychiatry.
On August 7, Datashvili and her lawyers reported that the psychiatric evaluation was conducted via interview in her cell. The activist said the examination happened unexpectedly while she was anticipating a transfer to a psychiatric facility.
“I had my bags packed,” Datashvili told the court during a lengthy pre-trial hearing on August 7, during which the court decided to keep the activist in pre-trial detention. “Yesterday, the experts came in, and I asked to call my lawyers. [They said] it’s not necessary. I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. Don’t I have my own rights?”
Medea Tsiramua, a prosecutor in the case, later confirmed to journalists that, given Datashvili’s refusal of the transfer, experts were sent into the penitentiary facility to assess her condition through an interview. Citing the defendant’s best interests, Tsiramua stated that the examination was thus completed and no further studies would be conducted.
While criticising what she called “deceptive” examination in the cell, Tamuna Gabodze, Datashvili’s lawyer from Partnership for Human Rights, a local human rights group, described the move as an activist’s “victory,” attributing it to the prosecutor’s efforts to circumvent the coercive order after widespread backlash.
“For the past few days, the prosecutor’s office has been persistently trying to prove that Nino should undergo a psychiatric examination based on documents filed by defense. Yesterday, secretly from the defense, they urgently brought Samkharauli [Forensics Bureau] experts to Nino in prison to somehow avoid her transfer to a psychiatric [facility],” Gabodze wrote on Facebook.
Abuse Allegations
Datashvili was arrested on June 20 and faces four to seven years in prison on charges of assaulting a law enforcement officer. The charges stem from a June 9 incident in which she was forcibly removed from a courtroom by bailiffs. Video footage shows her flailing her arms as she was restrained, though the nature or force of the contact remains unclear.
During the August 7 hearing, the activist also recalled the circumstances of her arrest, saying she was detained at a bus stop by plainclothes officers who neither identified themselves nor informed her of her rights, and was later forced to undress at the police station.
“When they took me to the police station, I kept pleading with them to allow me to call my child or a lawyer […] because I wanted to protect my rights. I have the right to have a lawyer,” she told the court, according to the Publika outlet.
“They stripped me. I wanted my lawyer to arrive first so I could be informed about everything before signing any documents,” the activist said, adding that she was denied access to a toilet for several hours.
Some other women detainees have reported what critics see as humiliating strip-searching practices by Georgian prison authorities. On June 13, the Georgian Public Defender’s Office said the Justice Ministry agreed to stop fully stripping inmates during body searches following the ombudsperson’s constitutional lawsuit.
Datashvili also recalled that after being taken to the police station, officers began filming her as a standard procedure. However, she claimed they were unsatisfied with the footage and made her walk back and forth multiple times to reshoot it. “They treated me like an object, not a human being,” Datashvili told the court.
The activist’s criminal case is among several recent prosecutions that critics say illustrate the ruling Georgian Dream party’s growing use of harsh criminal charges to target activists and journalists over relatively minor incidents.
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