Georgia: Targeted and sustained repression of human rights defenders must stop, says Special Rapporteur

GENEVA (5 September 2024) - Human rights defenders in Georgia have faced a wave of repression in 2024 that shows no sign of abating, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, said today.

“In late 2023, I visited Georgia to examine the environment for human rights defenders in the country, and things stood on a precipice,” Lawlor said. “Since then, the situation has deteriorated drastically.”

The Special Rapporteur cited the targeting of human rights defenders during the adoption of the Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence by Parliament earlier this year. The law, enacted on 28 May 2024 despite widespread popular protests in the country, places Georgia in violation of its human rights obligations concerning freedom of association and expression. It came into force on 1 August 2024.

“As the Government railroaded the 'foreign agent law' through Parliament, human rights defenders came under vicious, targeted attack,” Lawlor said. “They were physically attacked, subjected to threatening phone calls, and human rights organisations and their individual members saw their offices and homes painted with threats and smears.”

The Special Rapporteur stressed that these attacks were conducted with impunity, and in some cases, appear to have been encouraged by public statements from high-ranking Government officials. On 11 June 2024, Zuka Berdzenishvili, one of the founders of the pro-democracy 'Shame Movement', was brutally assaulted, leaving him hospitalised. The attack came shortly after the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, Shalva Pauashvili, accused Berdzenishvili, and others who had spoken out against the foreign agent law, of terrorism.

“Government officials and members of the ruling party publicly smearing human rights defenders as enemies of the people continues to be a major problem in Georgia,” Lawlor said. “These statements encourage and legitimise attacks against human rights defenders, and in the Georgian context, it appears increasingly clear this is what they are intended to do.”

The Special Rapporteur urged the Government to change course and called for authorities to strongly consider the implementation of the recommendations included in her report to the Human Rights Council earlier this year, on repairing and improving the situation for human rights defenders in the country.

Lawlor is in contact with Georgian authorities regarding her concerns and expressed her willingness to continue engaging with the government to support the implementation of her recommendations.

Ms. Mary Lawlor (Ireland) was appointed as Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders by the Human Rights Council in 2020. She is currently Associate Professor of Business and Human Rights at the Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) at Trinity College Dublin Business School. In 2001 she founded Front Line Defenders - the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders to focus on human rights defenders at risk. As Executive Director between 2001 and 2016, Ms. Lawlor represented Front Line Defenders and played a key role in its development. Ms. Lawlor was previously Director of the Irish Office of Amnesty International from 1988 to 2000, after becoming a member of the Board of Directors in 1975 and being elected its President from 1983 to 1987.

Endorsed by Ms. Gina Romero, Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association;

Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.