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Georgian Bar Association and human rights defenders protest institutional persecution of lawyers in Georgia. The parliamentary majority avoids speaking about it. Minority representative, deputy chair of the Parliament’s Human Rights Committee Dimitry Lortkipanidze rebuked the Public Defender for not having reflected the facts of lawyers’ rights violation in his annual report.

Lately, opposition representatives have spoken about the training of paramilitary groups in western Georgia, particularly in the Samegrelo region. They have noted that the government is training a special contingent to be used to disperse possible protest demonstrations.

The laws adopted by the Government of Georgia quite often cause discontent among citizens but the Law on Political Unions of Citizens has caused particularly serious discontent within Georgian civil society. Civic organizations initiated a campaign under the name “It Affects You” against the new provision in the law; very soon a record number of over 200 organizations joined the campaign in Georgia. Despite harsh civic protest, the government put the new law into practice and a new, specially designed service office within the State Audit Company [Chamber of Control] took action against opposition political parties and citizens somehow affiliated with them.

Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum Georgian National Platform Appeals to the European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighborhood Policy Stefan Fule, Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Denmark and Minister for European Affairs, Nicolai Wammen, Denmark

On February 28, 2012, during his annual speech in Parliament, President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili referred to a student, Mikheil Aleksidze, who has been expelled from the public school # 53 as a hooligan. He said Aleksidze was expelled because of his disobedience to the school director. Saakashvili said we live in different time and criminal mentality no longer works in public schools.

Georgian Constitution guarantees the freedom of assembly and manifestation, however, Georgian public witnessed unlawful intrusion of law enforcers in the right to peaceful assembly and manifestation several times throughout 2011. A significant number of legislative amendments were adopted that appear to affect the right to association and to peaceful assembly.

There are a number of worrying signs that indicate that the focus on greater modernization and investment can easily derail the human rights achievements, says UN expert Maina Kiai.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Maina Kiai, will undertake a visit to Georgia from 6 to 13 February 2012.

On February 3, a round table will take place in the Hotel Holiday Inn from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm. The Human Rights Center will present the results of monitoring on practical implementation of freedom of assembly in Georgia.

The report of the Human Rights Center – Monitoring the Freedom of Peaceful Assembly in Georgia covers the monitoring period from January 1 2011 to June 30 2011. It represents analysis of key freedom of assembly related legislative and empirical issues as well as trends currently present in the country.

The report is predominantly based on the empiric data provided by 25 monitors from 5 cities and regional centers in the country. Monitors were trained by the OSCE/ODIHR and the Council of Europe experts on freedom of assembly.

The project “Capacity building for human rights defenders on monitoring freedom of assembly in Georgia” was carried out in cooperation with OSCE/ODIHR and by the Council of Europe.

The aim of the project was to support human rights defenders in Georgia by increasing their monitoring skills in the area of freedom of peaceful assembly.