Georgia's Ombudsperson calls on authorities to eliminate oppression of people in prisons

Influential prisoners under the control of prison administrations try to prevent Ombudsperson's officers from inspecting prisons and other prisoners – from filing complaints, Georgia's Ombudsperson Nino Lomjaria claims. She has urged the Georgian government and parliament to intervene in the situation.

On January 20, Georgia's Ombudsperson Nino Lomjaria made public a report repeatedly stating that the semi-closed-regime prison administration model was based on an informal prisoner hierarchy, where so-called "prison overseers" enforced a bogus order to prevent other prisoners from voicing their problems.

Meanwhile, according to the Georgia's Ombudsperson, a group of prisoners controlled by the administration of penitentiary institutions and the so-called "prison overseers" regularly demonstrated aggression and expressed threats to the Ombudsperson's officers. "The purpose of those illegal actions was to impede our communication with prisoners and monitor the territory of the prison," Nino Lomjaria said on the air of the "Rustavi 2" TV Company as translated from Georgian by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The Georgia's Ombudsperson has called on the government "to take immediate measures to change the model of administrating the criminal subculture in prisons." Nino Lomjaria has also urged the Georgian Minister of Justice "to immediately raise the issue of bringing to responsibility the general director of the Penitentiary Service, as well as directors of the relevant penitentiary institutions."

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on January 21, 2021 at 02:03 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.