Georgia's MIA to destroy part of secret surveillance archive before August 15

Within the coming two weeks, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Georgia will destroy a part of the archive of materials recording citizens' privacy, accumulated as a result of illegal secret surveillance and tapping telephone conversations.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that initially it was planned to destroy the MIA's archive, discovered after the coalition "Georgian Dream" came to power, back in May. Then, a special commission was set up to monitor the destruction process; and it planned to destroy the first part of the archive on June 23.

The decision to destroy the first part of the archive before August 15 was made today at a sitting of the special commission, said Lasha Tughushi, the spokesman of the commission and the editor of the newspaper "Resonansi". He explained to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that at the first stage they plan to destroy the archives that contain data on citizens' private and intimate life – 99 files in total.

However, the MIA will preserve records of political processes for further study. In total, the archive contains 24,000 files with materials on personal life – of politicians, diplomats, journalists, clergy and community leaders.