22.09.2014 / 11:03

Press Digest 22.09.2014

The prospects of the Nationals’ presumable return are only filling our people with fear and terror, and they are ready to endure even more extreme hardship to avoid the Nationals’ rule – Soso Tsiskarishvili

Out of 2 conceived embryos one of them is doomed to death in Georgia… Government stiffening regulations against those women who abort their babies

“One day we will grasp baseball bats and will beat the acting authorities who cohabitate with these criminals as well as those bloodthirsty butchers who pelted us with a myriad of mishaps as hard as we can!”

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It would clearly not take them long to find legal grounds to sequestrate Saakashvili’s property as we all can see perfectly well how strongly our ex-President is determined not to cooperate with Georgia’s law enforcement agencies. There is not even a shadow of doubt that his property was confiscated on the legal grounds. However, some questions are still swirling round this issue. I would like to remind you of the fact that a week earlier before Saakashvili’s property was seized, the U.S. Department of State publicized a letter in which they appealed to the acting authorities to toe with democracy and in which they voiced concerns regarding their move to subject former high officials to a political persecution. Shortly after this, Irakli Gharibashvili visit to the US was planned. Considering all this, I presume that only the National Movement could have rendered a verdict of confiscating the former President’s property precisely now,” announces expert Soso Tsiskarishvili in his interview with the Kviris Palitra gazette.

“Please, don’t think that this conjecture has nothing to do with reality. Keep in mind that Justice Minister, Zurab Adeishvili, still has an overarching influence on a number of prosecutors who have held high posts thus far. And, accordingly, the National Movement can easily brew some schemes against Gharibashvili and to disrupt his visit to the US, its members can easily pull the strings whenever they want. Our Government’s move to seize the ex-Presidents property may easily be gotten wrong there; they may easily have viewed this move as a dismissal of their calls to toe with democracy without thinking much on whether or not their move was legal. The Nationals will obviously use this situation to their own advantage and will start bellowing across the world that they are being subjected to political persecution in their own country. Due to this, the PM may found himself in a bit embarrassing situation in the US; however, because of this, our relations with this country will definitely not decay,” asserts Mr. Tsiskarishvili.

“Anyway, this issue does not give our authorities the ground to raise the horns; neither can they be proud with the Justice Restitution process. Our hapless people who have passed through a myriad of mishaps under the former Government’s rule, have begged the present authorities to right the wrongs for 2 years…However, what they have done in this direction is a drop in the ocean. As for the threats by the leaders of the National Movement, I assure you that these threats are playing into the hands of the Georgian Dream. The prospects of the Nationals’ presumable return are only filling our people with fear and terror, and they are ready to endure even more extreme hardship to avoid the Nationals’ rule,” states the expert.

“Frankly speaking, I don’t expect serious reshufflings within the Government. No matter what steps the Nationals will take, how effective measures they will adopt, they will never manage to take over power again… However, if the Georgian Dream members dig their own graves with their own hands, nothing on earth can be fully excluded. Even on this occasion, I don’t think that the prospect of coming into power again will ever shine on this profligate force. They may manage this only if the entire Georgian society will out of the blue start suffering from amnesia. As for the present authorities, I would offer them the advice as follows: Don’t turn a deaf ear and blind eye to your own people and communicate with them as frequently as possible,” concludes the respondent.

Out of 2 conceived embryos one of them is doomed to death in Georgia… Government stiffening regulations against those women who abort their babies

“The Parliament is planning to apply more severe punitive measures against those women who will stoop to abort their babies. No precise data on illegal abortions have been release yet; however, the specialists think that the abortion statistics in Georgia is alarming. As an official statistics has it, in 2010 as many as 26 thousand legal abortions were performed, while 63 thousand children were born in our country; in 2011, 31 thousand abortions were performed, while 58 thousand children were born; in 2013, 57 thousand children were born in Georgia, while 37 thousand embryos died. Thus, considering the official as well as unofficial data, we can easily deduce that out of 2 conceived embryos one of them is doomed to death,” reports the Rezonansi gazette.

“At the parliament’s plenary session, Chairman of the Healthcare and Social Issues Committee, Dimitri Khundadze, announced that, according to the official data, annually more than 100 women go to the doctors to deliberately terminate their pregnancy; however, many of them give advantage to illegal abortions that are not obviously included in the official data. In the wake of this, the Parliament has voted for applying tougher punitive measure against those women who will abort their babies. According to recently promulgated regulations, women who have illegal abortions will be forced to perform community service from 120 to 300 hours or they will be sent to prison for 1 or 2 years. If a woman commits this misdemeanor again, she will be sentenced to 2-4 years in prison; in addition, she will reportedly forfeit her right to be socially active for 3 years. As the Health Committee Head, Gigi Tsereteli thinks, stiffened regulations can be viewed as prevention against illegal abortions; however, in his mind, only stricter rules cannot improve the situation,” says the article.

“The legislation refers to illegal abortions; and those who have them done voluntarily and those who perform them must really face the felony charges, as in this case, they pose a fatal threat to a mother’s life. An in this particular case, some strict sanctions must obviously be raised against the performers of these illegal abortions. Some sanctions such as fine, community service etc. were into force earlier too; however, these people were not sentenced to imprisonment in those days. However, if a crime was perpetrated again, a criminal was punished rather strictly. Thus, in my opinion, the stiffened regulations can decrease the number of illegal abortions in Georgia…,” announces Giorgi Tsereteli.

"However, the instances of illegal abortions in our country must decrease substantially, and in order to achieve this objective, we will have to employ other deterrent tools too such as different informative programs… A choice and a decision to continue her pregnancy must be made by a mother; she, apparently, must not jeopardize neither her own nor her child’s lives. The people cannot be forced to do away with their own “flesh and blood” because of poor financial conditions. Different programs must undoubtedly be introduced and implemented in Georgia. We all know that in the majority of cases, destitution and privation force our people to make this horrible decision… thus, the Government must take on the responsibility to draw positive changes in our people’s lives…,” concludes the respondent.

“One day we will grasp baseball bats and will beat the acting authorities who cohabitate with these criminals as well as these bloodthirsty butchers who pelted us with a myriad of mishaps as hard as we can!”

“Political prisoners are victims of an unspeakable injustice. However, first of all, I will underscore that many of the so called political prisoners don’t really deserve to enjoy this status. The Government has already sided some of these people by creating NGOs for them. Our political biggies are likely to pit these pseudo political prisoners against us one day. These people are in the Government’s good books, while we have been entirely forgotten probably because of the fact that they cannot lead us by our nose. In addition, they know perfectly well that we will never go cahoots with the Nationals. This Government is new only formally; high posts have still been held by the Nationals so far,” declares a political prisoner, Ghvaladze.

“The regime has remained the same. In addition to this, the Nationals are a band of ultimate thugs who have always been in one league and who are moved by a strong desire to take over power again. If they manage to seize power, we, political prisoners, will not be thrown in jail; we will be shot in the streets instantly. That is the reason why we must go to the gallows to prevent them from coming into power again. As for the members of our Government, a great deal of them is in one league with the Nationals, and they have given us the cold shoulder too. They don’t even want to give us employment; by doing this, they are, in fact, dooming us to death,” contends Mr. Ghvaladze.

“Justice Minister Tea Tsulukiani is even jibing at us, and her terrible behavior is obviously getting on our nerves. As you know, the UNO has appealed to the Georgian authorities to punish those who subjected their victims to inhumane treatment. They have also called on our authorities to exonerate political prisoners; however, our Political Biggies are trying to save the former criminal officials’ face by holding back from removing them from their posts. Although in order not to dismiss the recommendation from the UNO, the Ministry run by Tsulukiani is pretending as if there are caring about us; they are lavishly issuing promises that they will implement different training programs to teach us different crafts and give us possibility to earn our living. This is a travesty, disgraceful cynicism; how can they teach different crafts to a political prisoner Oleg Keshelava, who once served as a minister, or a former successful businessman, Zaal Jvania? Just tell me…,” says the respondent.

“Personally I passed through unimaginable sufferings and unspeakable humiliation. The beat me until I had blackouts, they callously tortured me via different tools, they morally insulted me, they spat at me… And what do I see after their corrupt Government was dismantled? Even now these bloodthirsty butchers are comfortably nestled in their high posts and are ironically looking down on me.

"Nationals rule has not been ended in Georgia! This is why those political prisoners who have no axe to grind will once again unite and loudly call to the Government to right the wrongs by giving these criminals their due. We have nothing to lose, and if they will still remain blunt to our pleas, we will render justice in this country under any circumstances… we have not left time; we cannot wait any longer! We cannot place confidence in them any more! …Thus, one day we will grasp baseball bats and will beat the acting authorities who cohabitate with these criminals as well as those bloodthirsty butchers who pelted us with a myriad of mishaps as hard as we can!” threatens the respondent.