European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance mentions Georgia's unfulfilled obligations

By Gvantsa Gabekhadze

Thursday, March 7

ECRI provided 23 recommendations to the country’s authorities back in 2016, two of which should have been followed up on after two years.

ECRI says it has not received any information about the cooperation of the Interior Ministry Human Rights Department with LGBT NGOs.

The European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), the Council of Europe’s independent human rights monitoring body, speaks about its recommendations Georgia still need to fulfill.

In its report on Georgia (fifth monitoring cycle) published on 1 March 2016, ECRI recommended that the Georgian authorities set up a specialized unit within the police to deal specifically with racist and homo-/transphobic hate crimes.

“ECRI has been informed by the Georgian authorities that a human rights department was established in the Ministry of Internal Affairs in January 2018. The new department is tasked, inter alia, with monitoring the process of investigating hate crime incidents, identifying gaps and proposing measures for improvement. It is also mandated to cooperate with international organizations, such as the United Nations and the European Union, and various NGOs in order to develop action plans and hold training events. Unfortunately, ECRI has not received any information about cooperation with LGBT NGOs, which would be relevant to tackle homo- /transphobic hate crime. It expresses its hope that these groups will also be included in the cooperation work of the new department,” the body says.

While ECRI considers the creation of this department a very positive step, “it is still too early to assess the impact of its work.”

“ More importantly, such a department is not a substitute for a specialized investigative unit within the police, as recommended by ECRI. The new department was created to review hate crime investigations, not to carry them out. It, therefore, does not constitute a dedicated reinforcement of hate crime investigation capacity at the law enforcement level. In this context, however, ECRI notes positively that the Ministry of Internal Affairs cooperated with the Office of the Public Defender (Ombudsman) of Georgia to train, in May 2018, some 40 police officers, who are designated to be specifically in charge of investigating alleged hate-motivated crimes in the future.”

When it comes to the second issue In its report on Georgia (fifth monitoring cycle), ECRI recommended that the Georgian authorities scale up their support for the Council of Religions, which operates under the auspices of the Public Defender’s Tolerance Centre.

“The Georgian authorities informed ECRI that they consider the State Agency for Religious Issues (henceforth: State Agency) to be the main interlocutor between religious communities and the government and fully capable of acting as an impartial, trusted and successful mediator in cases of problems related to religious affairs or inter-religious tensions. The authorities further assert that there has been no case so far in which another intermediary between religious associations and the government, represented by the State Agency, was needed. They also insist that the State Agency has taken steps in the past to cooperate with the Council of Religions and is eager to continue doing so in the future.”

However, the body says, that the only example provided by the authorities of co-operation consists of the State Agency reviewing documents produced by the Council of Religions.

“This already points to a rather minimal level of interaction between the two bodies. Moreover, the authorities refer to tensions between the Council of Religions and the State Agency, in particular, that some members of the Council allegedly advocate for the abolition of State Agency, but without providing further details as to the reasons for such lack of trust in the State Agency.”

ECRI says that the local Muslim community had requested the involvement of the Public Defender and the Tolerance Centre because they did not trust the State Agency and other members of the commission to be impartial.

“The State Agency, however, rejected the request.1 ECRI regrets that on this occasion yet another opportunity for cooperation and for the utilization of the experience of the Public Defender’s Tolerance Centre with regard to promoting religious tolerance was missed. ECRI has also not received any other information that could be interpreted as an expression of interest from the side of the State Agency for meaningful cooperation with the Council of Religions.”

ECRI concluded that the situation that had originally given rise to this priority recommendation persists and that the State Agency for Religious Issues has not taken any serious steps to cooperate with the Council of Religions, as recommended by ECRI. ECRI, therefore, considers that this recommendation has not been implemented.