Former Public Defender, Ucha Nanuashvili, is giving testimony before a magistrate judge at the Tbilisi City Court.

Before entering the questioning, Nanuashvili told journalists:

“This is a very big absurdity when a human rights defender is summoned to the Security Service because we provided information to an international expert – the OSCE ‘Moscow Mechanism’ expert – about specific cases and the overall situation in the country.

The obligation of every organization was to cooperate with the state expert; that’s why the highest state officials met with him. Instead of focusing more on the recommendations and implementing them, the state itself violates the principles it agreed upon with the OSCE. Paragraph 6 of the OSCE cooperation framework is an operational document of the ‘Moscow Mechanism.’ It obliges member states to protect the rights of every individual and organization and not to create problems for anyone cooperating with the expert. This requirement has already been violated by the Georgian authorities.

I assisted the expert on the specific cases he had questions about. He was interested in the reports we prepared over the past several years. I helped him with everything and provided that information… In Georgia, there are over 100 political prisoners, including Mzia Amaglobeli.

This is intimidation of civil society so that no one will want to contact an international organization in the future,” Nanuashvili said.

For reference, Nanuashvili was initially summoned for questioning by the State Security Service, but he refused to attend and requested to be questioned before a magistrate judge. According to Nanuashvili, the questioning concerns his communication with the OSCE ‘Moscow Mechanism’ expert.