Amnesty International calls on occupation regime to reopen closed crossing points
By Nika Gamtsemlidze
Monday, November 25
Amnesty International published a special statement calling on the de facto authorities in the Tskhinvali region to reopen closed crossing points and guarantee freedom of movement of civilians.
As the statement reads, since the closure of the crossing points in early September of this year, the human rights situation near the so-called border worsened by denying residents of the breakaway region access to medical care, social security benefits, education and family visits across the ABL.
According to the information of Amnesty International, the closure of the crossing points has particularly negatively affected older people, schoolchildren and university students and those in need of medical care. Older people have not been able to cross the ABL to receive their state pension in the Tbilisi-controlled territory since September with a consequential drastic impact on their standard of living.
Local media have reported that there has been at least one fatality that has already resulted from the ban on freedom of movement. In October, a family in the Akhalgori district alleged that their grandmother, 70-year-old Margo Martiashvili, passed away after the de facto authorities refused her to let her cross into the Tbilisi controlled territory for urgent medical assistance.
Although the movement of civilians in the region has been severely restricted since the end of the Georgia-Russia conflict in 2008, before September, residents of the Akhalgori district and a few remote villages in the west of the Region could cross the ABL.
Since September, the de facto authorities decided to close these crossing points. The de facto authorities announced that the decision to close the crossings was a response to Tbilisi opening a police post near the ABL in the vicinity of the village Tsnelisi in late August.
As the statement reads, under international human rights law freedom of movement can only be restricted to pursue certain legitimate objectives, must be consistent with other human rights and be a proportionate response. In the case of South Ossetia/Tskhinvali Region, while national security or public order grounds of this measure are in question, the complete ban enacted since September is a disproportionate response.
Amnesty International also commented on the detention of Vazha Gaprindashvili, a well-known Georgian orthopedic traumatologist, who was charged with “illegally crossing the border”, which carries a penalty of up to two years of imprisonment and he was remanded for two months in Tskhinvali.
Three other people were detained with Gaprindashvili, but they were released soon after. As for Gaprindashvili, he stands accused of a more serious “offence” because, according to the de facto authorities, he has intentionally “crossed the border”.
Amnesty International is a non-governmental organization based in the United Kingdom focused on human rights. The organization claims it has more than seven million members and supporters around the world.
