Rights Situation of IDPs and Conflict-affected Citizens
At the presentation held on June 21, 2016, the Public Defender of Georgia talked about the rights situation of IDPs and conflict-affected citizens, the changes implemented last year, as well as the existing challenges and problems, which are reflected in the Parliamentary Report 2015.
During the presentation of the report’s chapter on the situation of IDPs, Public Defender's representative Meri Kochlamazashvili reviewed the efforts of the Public Defender's Office, including the visits to more than 700 former IDPs’ settlements and more than 900 legal consultations provided for IDPs.
The monitoring and survey of individual applications revealed that despite some progress, poor living conditions and lack of living space are still major problems for the majority of IDPs. Low level of awareness of the rights situation of IDPs is also a problem.
The Public Defender's representatives were actively involved in the activities of the Commission for IDPs’ Issues, which was set up by the Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Accommodation and Refugees. In addition, the Public Defender is a member of the Supervisory Board of Action Plan for Implementation of State Strategy.
The rights situation of people living along the dividing line and in the occupied territories was reviewed by Medea Turashvili, Advisor to the Public Defender for Issues of Human Rights in Conflict-affected Regions. She spoke of the poor socio-economic conditions, difficulties in search for income and important social projects of the villages alongside the dividing lines in the Shida Kartli and Samegrelo regions.
It should be noted that part of population of the Shida Kartli region, especially of the village of Zardiaantkari, has still not received assistance for their damaged houses or lost property from the state.
The vicious practice of detention of Georgian citizens at the occupation lines is still kept. Regulations imposed on the movement of people at the dividing lines are also problematic. Residents of Abkhazia can enter the Georgian territory only with Abkhazian passports and through checkpoints, while the dividing line is completely closed for so-called South Ossetia's residents except for a few exceptions.
The problem of getting education in a mother tongue is acute in the Gali district. By the de-facto administration’s decision, from the 2015-2016 academic year the teaching language has become Russian in 1-4 grades of the Georgian schools, while the number of Georgian language hours was reduced in the rest of the schools. At the same time, all future first-grade students will start studying in the Russian language.
Ketevan Tsikhelashvili, Deputy State Minister for Reconciliation and Civic Equality, as well as Grigol Giorgadze and Shota Rekhviashvili, Deputy Ministers of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Accommodation and Refugees, delivered speeches at the event.
At the end of the presentations, discussion was held between representatives of various state agencies, NGOs, international organizations and diplomatic corps.
