Equality Movement NGO activists attacked in Georgia
ILGA-Europe has received reports of attacks against our member organisation Equality Movement in the city of Tbilisi in Georgia.
Print HTMLFour activists from Equality Movement NGO were attacked by their neighbours in the backyard of their office building on 28 September. The perpetrators assaulted them verbally and physically and threatened them with weapons.
The victims called the police and ambulance and also notified the Public Defender’s Office and General Inspection of the Ministry of Interior of Georgia. According to Equality Movements’ latest statement. the police officials who arrived spoke to the victims aggressively and didn’t intervene when the perpetrators as they continued to assault and attack the victims. The doctors in the ambulance also appeared reluctant to fully record the victims’ injuries in official documents..
The Ministry of Internal Affairs released a statement regarding the case on 29 September. In the statement, no reference was made regarding the homophobic ground for the attack.
Equality Movement have reported that verbal insults from their neighbours continued after the incident on 28 September . As a result, they have decided to close their office.
ILGA-Europe remind the Georgian authorities to consider the homophobic and transphobic nature of this event – as the Georgian Criminal Code mentions sexual orientation and gender identity as a bias motive for hate crimes.
Georgia is currently ranked at 33rd place (out of 49 countries) on the Rainbow Europe Map/Index, ranking countries in terms of their LGBTI-inclusive law and policies.
Read the reaction of the human rights organisations from Georgia.
Read about previous attacks on the LGBTI community in Georgia.
