Tamara Oniani, Chairperson of the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association, stated that the organization has submitted a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights regarding systemic torture against demonstrators during November–December 2024. She explained that the litigation strategy aims to assess the scale of the violations and to establish before the Strasbourg Court the damage caused not only to individual citizens but also to the constitutional order as a result of actions by law enforcement, investigative, and other state bodies.

“The evidence shows that the dispersal of protests was not an isolated mistake or a poorly executed operation, but rather organized criminal violence and the beginning of a severe human rights crisis that has developed in the country since November 28, 2024. Therefore, the Court should assess not only specific violations - such as the prohibition of torture, discrimination, freedom of assembly, and property rights - but also in light of Article 17 of the Convention. This is the first time Article 17 is being invoked in relation to Georgia in a case concerning demonstrations, allowing us to present before the Court evidence of democratic erosion and to demonstrate that the state acted not merely to restrict freedom of assembly and expression, but to destroy these rights.

The evidence indicates that masked officers engaged in deliberate, systematic torture. In particular, it has been established that, alongside the dispersal of protests, special forces units arbitrarily detained individuals, beat them, and then, beyond police cordons and away from cameras, subjected them to even more severe abuse. The violence continued in specially arranged minibuses, where people were beaten in groups using fists, kicks, batons, and other objects. Victims were primarily struck in the head and face, had their belongings taken, were insulted, and threatened with sexual violence. After this, injured individuals were handed over to other police officers and taken to police stations, where detention reports were often falsified,” Oniani said.

As she noted, the fact that this was not a series of individual excesses but a deliberate state strategy “is evidenced by the public rewarding of perpetrators by high-ranking officials and the impunity of the officers involved.”

According to the Chairperson, no individuals have been charged to date, including in terms of establishing responsibility of state officials. Therefore, the organization believes that domestic remedies have been exhausted and is turning to the European Court of Human Rights to establish justice in this case.