Canvas Georgia responds to the SSG statement and calls the ongoing processes around the organization pressuring

Canvas Georgia responds to the SSG statement and calls the ongoing processes around the organization pressuring.

The organization urges the international human rights organization, supporters of democracy and human rights in Georgia to take notice of the above developments and communicate this with Georgia’s relevant public and private institutions.

"In response to the successful civic campaign carried out in Tbilisi during February-March 2023 against the “Russian Law”, the Georgian high-ranking state officials openly targeted the director of CANVAS Georgia, Giorgi Meladze, referring to him as “an extremist lecturer” and one of the organizers of the campaign.

The threat campaign continued on Septmeber 18^th, when during a public briefing the State Security Service of Georgia representative stated that CANVAS participated in an organized conspiracy against the state with the intention to overthrow the current regime.

10 days after the above statement, on September 29^th the members of CANVAS (Slobodan Djinovic, Sinisa Sikman and Jelena Stoisich) being in Tbilisi were asked by the SSSG to appear in the agency for questioning. Following the questioning, CANVAS members left Georgia without an official statement, as the questioning was classified and all of them were bound by nondisclosure rule.

CANVAS Georgia believes that these developments serve as a means to pressure not only the head of the organization and its members, but also all the activists who cooperate with it, receive and disseminate the knowledge on strategic non-violence campaigns.

We urge the international human rights organization, supporters of democracy and human rights in Georgia to take notice of the above developments and communicate this with Georgia’s relevant public and private institutions. We believe that such support will significantly aid the activists working for strengthening democracy in Georgia," reads the statement.

For information, the State Security Service released information about the investigative action conducted against the organization "Canvas" and made public "part of the evidence".

According to SSG, on September 25, 2023, at the invitation of the East-West Management Institute of the USAID program, Serbian citizens Sinisa Sikman, Jelena Stoisic and Slobodan Jinovic arrived in Georgia. According to SSG, these persons are connected with the revolutionary events in Georgia in 2003, and in different years also had connections with similar process in Serbia, Ukraine and other states.

According to SSG, they were actively teaching methods of creating protest drives and tactics of conducting violent actions. As SSG says, they represent the management link of the "Canvas" organization, and also Sinisa Sikman and Slobodan Jinovic are former members of the "Otpor" organization, which was an analogue of the Georgian organization "Kmara" in Serbia.

According to the SSG, the declared reason for the arrival of the mentioned persons in Georgia was to conduct trainings for groups working in the field of culture in matters of "strategic non-violent fight", but the investigation established that this was not the only purpose of their arrival in Georgia. In particular, the real purpose of the visit was to establish communication and conduct trainings with those young people and influential non-governmental organizations, which should become the core of destructive and illegal actions planned in Georgia in October-December of this year.

The State Security Service announces that the conference held on September 26-29, funded by USAID, was organized by "Canvas-Georgia" and the East-West Management Institute. SSG publishes part of the evidence obtained as a result of the secret investigative action against Sinisa Sikman, Jelena Stojsic and Slobodan Djinovic.