Georgia: criminal cases opened against Azerbaijanis who took part in picket

The Prosecutor's Office of the Marneul District of Georgia has opened criminal cases against all the sixteen Azerbaijanis detained on February 22 in the village of Damya Gorarkhy.

Zumrud Gurbanov, chairman of the NGO of the Azerbaijanis living in Georgia named "Geirat" told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent in a telephone conversation that all of them were arrested for the term of 3 months, for the period of investigation. However, after presenting charges, they are under threat of 3-5 years of imprisonment (Article 226 and 253 of the Criminal Code of Georgia - "Disturbance of public peace" and "Resistance to representative of authority").

According to his story, among the detainees there are an old man of 76 and an elderly woman; the police promised to let them out on bail.

Mr Gurbanov has noted that discontent of Azerbaijani population stems from the fact that their land plots were sold out to wealthy persons from Tbilisi, who have no attitude to local residents. The repeated promises to take the population's discontent into account and to give plots to their true owners remain unfulfilled; this was the reason of this incident. He has also noted that till now the police have not returned videocassettes of operators of the Azerbaijani TV Channels 'Lider' and 'ANS', who had filmed the dispersal of protestors in Marneuli.

We remind you that on February 22 several hundreds of residents of Damya Gorarkhy, Marneul District of Georgia, blocked the highway Marneuli-Sadakhly. However, the action was dispersed by the police. As a result of the clash, six Azerbaijanis and several policemen were wounded.

The Azerbaijanis living in Georgia have called the official Tbilisi to put an end to violations of the rights of Azerbaijanis in this country. They assert that the dispersal by special fighters of the peaceful protest action on February 22 in Damya Gorarkhy village was a manifestation of complete lawlessness and violation of elementary rights of citizens.

Meanwhile, as it became known to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani Embassy in Georgia has addressed the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia with a demand to settle the situation; and the corresponding memorandum of the MFA is anticipated.