Rights defenders of Georgia, Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia state political repressions after protests in Tbilisi

Seventeen human rights organizations of Georgia, Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia state that the dispersal of the protest rally in Tbilisi on May 26 was followed by political repressions in Georgia. They addressed the US State Department, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the European Union, the OSCE/Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the diplomatic missions accredited in Georgia, urging them to urgently set up a group for monitoring the current events and related trials, and to publicly condemn the excessive use of force by the police at the dispersal.

The appeal of rights defenders states that, according to eyewitnesses, the police first surrounded the place, where the rally was held, not to give its participants a chance to escape; and only then began the dispersal. Policemen pursued the fleeing people, and broke into houses, where they sought refuge. The widespread media footage has recorded numerous facts of excessive use of force by the police.

"According to eyewitnesses, dozens of wounded protesters were placed onto the pavement, where they stayed handcuffed for several hours. The journalists were also subjected to physical and verbal abuse; some of them had their equipment taken away or smashed; and some journalists were temporarily detained," say human rights activists, treating the scale of applied violence as unprecedented.

The document also expresses concern that the exact number and whereabouts of many detainees are still unknown; and that at trials of detainees those, who denied the charges (mostly - of resisting the police), were sentenced to imprisonment, while those who confessed were just fined and released.

The human rights organizations of the four above countries report that police agents planted drugs or firearms on detained activists; they were provoked to acts of hooliganism; the police were widely practicing kidnappings of activists, followed by severe beatings, which caused serious physical injuries; and the protesters on their way home after the actions were systematically attacked by men in civilian clothes (members of the so-called "zonderbrigades").

Urging to strain efforts to stop political repressions in Georgia, human rights activists ask the US State Department, PACE, European Union, OSCE and diplomatic missions in Georgia to address the Georgian authorities to ensure a full, independent, impartial, fast and transparent investigation into the events preceding the break up of the protest action and the crackdown itself, as well as to provide physical and mental immunity of the detainees, their rights of access to advocates and fair trial.

The appeal was signed by the Georgian organizations - the "Former Political Prisoners for Human Rights, the Helsinki Civil Assembly, the Caucasian Centre for Strategic Studies, the Georgian Academy, the "Free Choice", the Association of Georgian Women-Scientists, the Greens Movement of Georgia - Friends of the Earth, the Women's Information Centre, the Armenian organizations - the Armenian Helsinki Association, the Helsinki Assembly "Vanadzor", the "Public Information and Need of Knowledge", the Azerbaijani organizations - the Centre for Human Rights, the Association for Women's Rights in Azerbaijan named after D. Alieva, the Russian organizations - the Moscow Helsinki Group, the Glasnost Defence Foundation, the Committee to Protect Scientists and the Sakharov Public Centre.