Georgian MIA destructs part of archival records on citizens' private life

On January 31, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Georgia destroyed two CDs with records of citizens' private life, which had been recorded in the course of secret surveillance. The destruction took place at the closing sitting of the temporary commission on illegal surveillance and secret recording.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the above special commission was set up to monitor the above archive destruction process. On September 5, 2013, the MIA destroyed a part of the archive – records of citizens' intimate life in the form of 144 video and photo files.

The commission told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the above records had been discovered not long ago in the course of examining the archive. After that, a decision was made to destruct them. Mow, the MIA intends to transfer 590 CDs with records obtained in illegal way to the General Prosecutor's Office for further investigation.

Kakha Kakhishvili, a member of the commission and the head of the NGO "Centre for Studying Elections and Political Technologies", has stated that the records stored at the MIA and Military Police had been made illegally for various political purposes, "which is an organized and systematic crime."

Let us remind you that on July 5, 2013, soon after discovery of the records, a number of Georgian NGOs called on the MIA to destroy the archival materials about citizens' privacy.