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MIA accuses civil society organisations and political groups of spreading false information

In an official statement, Georgia’s Interior Ministry has accused ‘representatives of non-governmental organizations and members of various political groups’ of spreading a number of false statements over the last few days regarding the measures taken by the Interior Ministry at protests ‘in order to discredit the law enforcement officers’.

The Interior Ministry specifically referenced information spread by various media outlets and on social media about injured protesters, stating that ‘the public could clearly see that the police were arresting violent individuals, who in many cases resisted the law enforcement officers’.

‘In most cases, the violent persons resisted the policemen at the moment of the arrest, in the course of which physical injuries were inflicted to the detainees and the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs’, the statement read, adding that the special investigative service is conducting an investigation into the ‘alleged use of excessive force’ from the side of the police.

The Interior Ministry also reminded the public that 171 employees have been injured since the protests began on 28 November, noting that up to 10 officers required ‘complex surgical intervention’, up to 40 received ‘serious injuries’ in the face, head, or eye areas as ‘a result of stones thrown by the protesters’, and up to 60 received ‘multiple burns’ as a result of pyrotechnics.

The statement also alleged that a number of criminal acts had been committed by demonstrators, including ‘up to 60 incidents of theft’ and the damaging of building facades on Rustaveli Avenue, which they claimed exceeds ₾100,000 ($36,000) in property damages.

Regarding accusations by media outlets and on social media that police have been confiscating the personal belongings of detainees ‘under vague circumstances’, the Interior Ministry stated that according to Article 249 of the Code on Administrative Offences, the police have the right to ‘temporarily confiscate or seize a person’s actual possession of an item in the case defined by the law’, and that any confiscated items were ‘returned to the detained persons in temporary detention centres, according to the acting legislation, upon release’.

‘The spread information, alleging that the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs illegally confiscated personal belongings from the arrestees, is a complete falsehood and only serves to discredit the Agency and the law enforcement officers’, the statement read.

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