Georgia threatens to arrest foreigners who visit Abkhazia and South Ossetia

The foreigners who visit Abkhazia and South Ossetia without permit of Georgian authorities will be exposed to criminal liability, once they appear in the territory of Georgia. This was stated today by Shota Utiashvili, official spokesman of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Georgia. Today, it became known that citizens of Russia and Armenia are already behind bars in Georgia for illegal border crossing.

"Foreign citizens whose passports have stamps confirming their trips to Abkhazia and South Ossetia will be detained in the territory of Georgia and made answerable for illegal border crossing," said Mr Utiashvili.

According to his story, several such cases took place already - the infringers were fined by 2000 laris each and announced persona non grata in Georgia, the "New Region" Agency reports.

It should be noted here that foreign citizens and stateless persons are allowed by Georgia to enter the territory of Abkhazia only from Zugdidi, and the territory of South Ossetia - only from Gori.

In practice, Georgian authorities may apply tougher punishments than fines to infringers of the border. Thus, as "Rossiiskaya Gazeta" writes today, citizens of Russia, who have visited Abkhazia or South Ossetia, may be put into prison.

A stamp of Abkhazian or South-Ossetian frontier guards in one's passport, if the person did not get into these republics from the Georgian territory, may result in 2-4 years of imprisonment in Georgia. This punishment is assumed by the provision about illegal crossing of the state border, which was added to the Law "On Occupied Territories" soon after the August War of 2008.

Citizens of Russia and Armenia suffer most from Georgian special services, the above Russian newspaper writes. Now they are let into the republic and detained at exit, while until this summer they were prohibited to enter the country.

However, Shota Utiashvili refutes information that mainly citizens of Russia and Armenia are serving their terms for breaking the state border. "There were several cases of arrest for breaking the border; there are Russians, Georgians and citizens of other countries among the detainees," the RIA "Novosti" quotes him as saying.