A few days ago, series of special screening was arranged in local theatres and halls of the cities in Samegrelo – Poti, Zugdidi, Senaki and Khobi. The organizers showed the video “Saakashvili’s Bloody Regime”. The photos of the scenes from the video were exhibited outside the hall. The materials contained scenes of violence. Public school pupils were in the audience, and some of them were younger than 14. The children were shown the film made up the scenes from the high-profile cases of the past years; among them were the scandalous prison videos on torture.
As adults say they were not informed what kind of films they were going to see in the cinemas. In some cases, they even confirmed their presence with signatures. According to the interviews of school children by the media, public school teachers and local authorities organized gathering and transportation of pupils to the screening place. School directors deny information about having organized the gathering and transportation of the children and claim they did not have information what kind of event was organized; they just followed the instructions from the local educational resource centers.
Human Rights House Tbilisi calls on the Ministry of Education to promptly and adequately respond to the aforementioned facts and estimate real reasons why underage children were taken to see the prohibited video materials and to impose adequate responsibility to the people who were involved in breaching the children’s rights.
Member organizations of HRHT
Article 42 of the Constitution
Georgian Center for Psycho-Social and Medical Rehabilitation for Torture Victims (GCRT)
Human Rights Center
Human Rights and Conflict Studies- Caucasia
Media Institute
Union Safari
