Georgia: human rights activists demand investigation of inmates' beating in Ksan prison

Lawyer Liya Mukhashavriya, head of the Georgian NGO "Priority of Human Rights", demands that the prosecutor's office, Ministry of Justice and prison administration start investigating the fact of beating prisoners in the Ksan prison, located in Eastern Georgia, which happened on August 19.

According to her story, "the administration of Ksan prison No. 7 has severely beaten prisoners because of their appeal to the Strasbourg court."

"On August 19, a team of special agents drove prisoners out of their cells; then they were undressed and severely beaten. This way of treating inmates was repeated an hour later," Ms Mukhashavriya said at a briefing on September 8, having referred to the information received from prisoners.

"Direct violence and inhuman treatment took place in the prison, which is inadmissible and illegal," she said.

Liya Mukhashavriya is a proxy on the claim lodged by Archil Sakhvadze, one of the beaten prisoners, to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Special agents broke a wooden board on his head; he now has symptoms typical for brain concussion. According to Liya, on August 30 her client went on hunger strike, together with other prisoners, demanding investigation of the fact of beating and cruel treatment, and holding medical examination.

According to her story, several days ago she had a meeting with beaten prisoners. She said that Archil Sakhvadze still has vivid traces of violence on his right arm and on his back, the "Georgia Online" Agency reports.

Liya asserts that the prison administration demands from Sakhvadze and two more prisoners to stop contacts with the ECtHR. The lawyer said that she had informed the Court about the incident.

As reported by the "News-Georgia", the Ministry of Justice and the prosecutor's office have not made any comments on the lawyer's statement yet.