Human rights activists are worried with high death rate in Georgian prisons

As reported today at press conference by Eka Beseliya, leader of the public movement "Solidarity with Illegal Prisoners", the Georgian penitentiary system is in a grave and critical situation. According to her story, the death rate among inmates is of special concern.

"The death rate level among prisoners is very high. By the official data, since January 1, 2010, and up to August inclusive, 38 prisoners died in custody," she said.

According to Ms Beseliya, out of them, 22 prisoners had been transferred to the National Centre of TB and Lung Diseases and died there.

"It means that bosses of the penitentiary system are in fact bringing their inmates to the pre-mortal condition," she believes.

Earlier, Eka Beseliya had stated that religious prisoners appeared in Georgian prisons: this was her comment on the verdict on the case about the incident that had happened in the "Kavkasia" TV Company.

According to her data, "today Georgia has 330 illegal prisoners"; and her organization continues accounting and monitoring the inmates with this status, the "News-Georgia" reports.

At the same time, Ms Beseliya has noted that the number of illegal convicts registered by her organization has gone up. "Recently, we added 74 persons more," the "Interfax" quotes her as saying.

On September 23 at midday, the Tbilisi Cinema House plans to host a meeting of human rights and civil society activists on the topic of political and illegal prisoners. Ms Beseliya calls the public of the country to take active part in the meeting and "jointly find the way out."