Georgia

Credit: Valeria Petrova, shutterstock

In 2008, Russia attacked Georgia, a former Soviet republic, occupying Georgia’s republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Many who resisted were tortured. Through its presence in the regions, the Georgian Centre for Psychosocial and Medical Rehabilitation of Torture Victims (GCRT) was able to provide survivors with rehabilitation.

The Georgian Centre for Psychosocial and Medical Rehabilitation of Torture Victims (GCRT) is headquartered in Tiblisi, the capital of Georgia. At the intersection of Europe and Asia, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, Georgia has the Middle East to its south, and Russia to its north.

“Since Georgia has had a turmoil and violence right from the breakup of the Soviet Union somehow the field of psychotraumatology evolved earlier. A lot of suffering caused development of the field,” says Lela Tsiskarishvili, Executive Director of the Georgian Center for Rehabilitation of Torture Victims, GCRT. “So therefore we’re in the position to work with our colleagues from other countries in development of psychotraumatology in their countries.”

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In April 2024, mass peaceful protests against the reintroduction of the Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence – branded the ‘Russian Law’ for its similarities to the many Kremlin-backed laws that have been used to decimate Russian civil society – were met by a brutal police crackdown. Over several weeks, at least 300 protesters were arrested, with dozens severely beaten by masked police during arrest and detention, while others were left seriously injured from other excessive uses of force, including stun grenades and rubber bullets from multiple projectile cartridges.

According to Lela Tsiskarishvili, former IRCT President and Executive Director of the Georgian Centre for Psychosocial and Medical Rehabilitation of Torture Victims (GCRT):

“This is the most violent crackdown by police since the 2007 protests”

Georgian police met protesters with a systematic policy to torture and ill-treat them: Of 156 detainees held in detention centres across the country and visited by members of the Georgian Ombudsman’s office, 124 reported having been subjected to violence and ill-treatment.

Lawyers for those detained reported individuals leaving police detention with broken bones, injuries to their faces and eye sockets, open wounds and severe poisoning from tear gas and pepper spray.

Numerous testimonies indicated that police officers also targeted journalists who attempted to report on the crackdown against the protesters. Over 50 journalists were physically injured by police as well as prevented from carrying out their professional activities by destroying equipment. Torture is prohibited under Georgia’s 1995 Constitution, and through its ratification of the UN Convention Against Torture and the European Convention on Human Rights.

The preliminary findings published by IRCT suggested Georgia had pursued “a coordinated policy and practice of systematically torturing and ill-treating protesters and supporters.”

Responding rapidly to the need for strong evidence gathering, IRCT-IFEG was able to conduct a two-week joint mission in mid December 2024 with our partners in the United Against Torture Consortium, OMCT and Omega Research Foundation to Tiblisi.

The mission was in support of IRCT member GCRT and its national partners Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) and the Human Rights Center. The evidence strengthened filings by the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association to the European Court of Human Rights, which may build on the landmark 2025 Tsavaa ruling that found Georgia in violation of the absolute prohibition of torture during the 2019 protest crackdown. IRCT-IFEG worked together with GCRT and its national partners to develop a methodology for recording in a comprehensive yet efficient manner the experiences of victims and documenting their injuries, adapting the IRCT’s Protest Toolkit for the situation in Georgia.

An initial report was published on 24 December with preliminary findings suggesting that the Georgian State has pursued,

“a coordinated policy and practice of systematically torturing and ill-treating protesters and supporters, often after they are already under the physical control of the police.”

The report garnered a lot of media attention in the last week of the year, with GCRT Director Lela Tsiskarishvili interviewed in a half hour slot on the main public broadcaster.

The 20-year-old student, Lazare Maghlakelidze, returned to Georgia to vote in the parliamentary elections in October 2024 and then stayed to join the protest movement against the pro-Russian ‘Georgian Dream’ party that suspended Georgia’s entry to the EU.

“They have these vans that have been emptied out on the inside and darkened that are purely there to torture the protesters on the inside,” said Maghlakelidze. “You can hear them shouting, ‘The fun is going to start now,’ as they’re getting us into the van. All of them are participating in beating you. Anybody who just goes by feels free to just attack you, hit you, denigrate you in any way they want.”

After dragging Giorgi Chutkerashvili into their blacked-out van, the police in Georgia’s capital Tiblisi noticed that he was was not yet bleeding.

“He held my head in place and hit me directly in the eye. He missed slightly the first time … He even said, ‘Ah, missed that one.’ Then he struck me again, this time directly in the eye. That blow ruptured the back wall of my eye, and I have had one surgery because of it.”

One year ago, Chutkerashvili was among hundreds of thousands of Georgians who took to the streets against the pro-Russian Government; The protesters were met by an unprecedented campaign of #torture by police and security forces.

“I’m choosing and learning to be a fighter rather than a victim,” says Giorgi Bregvadze. “Just as justice has not been restored, my personal healing is still ongoing.”

Sleeplessness and rage followed Giorgi’s beating by police on the streets of Tiblisi just over a year ago, one of thousands of protesters tortured and ill-treated by police on the orders of Georgia’s pro-Russia Government.

But through rehabilitation at IRCT member The Georgian Centre for Psychosocial and Medical Rehabilitation of Torture Victims (GCRT) Giorgi was able to channel his anger into a determination to continue to demand justice for survivors of torture.