Georgian police face new misconduct allegations over ‘illegal’ detentions

An activist and a judge’s aide have accused the Georgian police of illegally detaining them, confiscating their phones, threatening and assaulting them, and preventing them from contacting their lawyers.

On Wednesday, animal rights activist Luka Kintsurashvili and Tornike Obolashvili, a senior assistant to a Constitutional Court judge, posted that they were assaulted by the police in separate incidents.

Kintsurashvili stated that he was stopped by three plainclothes police officers on 9 July on his way to a pet store. He said that they confiscated his phone after he started filming them.

‘Since they were talking to me in a rude manner from the beginning and they didn’t tell me the reason why I was being checked for no reason, I considered it necessary to take a video’, he said.

He said that another police officer drove by in a black car with tinted windows, ordering the officers to force him into the car, where they insulted him and searched his belongings. 

Kintsurashvili wrote that he was told that he was being stopped by the police as a ‘precautionary measure’ because he was ‘new to the district’. He said he was detained for obstructing the police, and that he was barred from contacting a lawyer or a family member in police custody.

At the police station, Kintsurashvili said he was questioned about his thoughts on queer people and 17 May — the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, which is commemorated by the Georgian Church as Family Purity Day.

‘They offered to slaughter a sheep for me to drink its blood (I am vegan), [they asked] what I thought about abortion, why I was in favour of “killing” children (zygotes). What is most upsetting was that a woman asked me that’, he wrote.

He said that the police chief promised to release him if he deleted the videos he had taken of them but threatened to place him in pre-trial detention should he refuse. He was handcuffed and detained despite agreeing to deleting the videos.

Kintsurashvili was released on 11 July and said he was not allowed to contact his lawyer whilst in detention.

‘I still did not sign the document that [said] I agree that I had prevented the police from doing their work’.

The court granted Kintsurashvili’s request to have his trial adjourned 22 July. However, he stated that he did not believe that his words would ‘have more value than the word of a police officer’.

Tornike Obolashvili posted about his detention hours after Kintsurashvili, saying that he was also detained in an almost identical fashion. He said that he was kept in detention for four hours and had sustained injuries while in police custody.

Obolashvili wrote on Facebook that two plainclothes police officers had stopped him and asked him for identification, to which he agreed. He said the officers then asked him to open his bag, which Obolashvili refused to do, demanding that it be done in accordance with the law.

He said the police then threatened to hold him there for three hours if he refused to open his bag.

Obolashvili demanded his ID back several times, eventually pulling out his phone to film the incident. He said the police officers confiscated his phone, twisted his arms, and took him to their car.

‘Before we got to the car, they pushed me to the ground, and threw me on the road, as a result of which blood flowed from my elbow and fingers. At that time, I heard that one of them also called [for backup] by radio’, he stated.

He was taken to a police station, where he said he was treated ‘condescendingly’ by the police, who refused to tell him whether or not he was going to be arrested.

Obolashvili said was denied his request to call a lawyer, stating that when the police had finally agreed to let him contact one, they confiscated his phone yet again after he had unlocked it to do so.

He said the head of the police station then met with him to ask him about his detention. Oboloashvili reportedly said that he believed the police officers were illegally collecting his personal information from his phone, to which the police chief said that he would ‘clarify the situation’.

Obolashvili said he told the police chief that he was an employee of the Constitutional Court. He said that the police officers’ attitude ‘fundamentally changed’ after they searched his bag without his permission and confirmed that he worked at the court.

He said he was then told that his detention was a ‘misunderstanding’ and that it would not have occurred had he proved he was a court secretary earlier.

Obolashvili refused to sign his detention documents, stating that they contained ‘lies’. He was charged with disobeying a police officer — an administrative offence.

He said that the short video he had filmed of the plainclothes police officers was deleted from his phone. 

Obolashvili said he sustained injuries during his detention, and that he had filed a complaint against the police at the Special Investigation Service, the agency responsible for investigating police misconduct.

On Thursday, Obolashvili stated that he had been summoned to the Tbilisi City Court together with his lawyer.

The Special Investigation Service told OC Media that they were unable to comment on Oboloashvili’s case, and that they had summoned animal rights activist Kintsurashvili to interview him about his time in detention.

Reports of violence or police misconduct against activists and government critics have been on the rise since the ruling Georgian Dream party reintroduced and adopted their controversial foreign agent law amidst mass protests that took the country by storm in April and May.