MFA Spokesman Andrei Nesterenko’s Comments in Response to a Media Query about the Prosecution in Georgia of Foreigners Who Have Visited Abkhazia and South Ossetia
1160-01-09-2010
Question: Please comment on the statements of a spokesman for the Georgian Interior Ministry that foreign nationals who have visited Abkhazia or South Ossetia without the Tbilisi authorities’ knowledge shall be subject to arrest and prosecution on the territory of Georgia.
Comment: Indeed, foreigners who have visited Abkhazia or South Ossetia, in the event they turn up in Georgia, face the possibility of prosecution entailing large fines or imprisonment. The prosecution is done under the so-called law on occupied territories, 2009, which, incidentally, after its passage caused quite a number of remarks of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe. The purpose of this practice is obvious – Georgian authorities are trying by all means available to block for Abkhazia and South Ossetia communication with the outside world.
Thus, the approaches of the Tbilisi rulers haven’t changed in the slightest compared with the period of the 1990's and 2000's, when Georgia imposed a suffocating blockade on the population of these republics. Against this background, particularly evident is the hypocrisy of the “strategy of peaceful engagement” that official Tbilisi is now noisily advertising around the world.
The Georgian authorities’ pathological hatred of the Abkhaz and Ossetians is so great that it gets projected, as we see, onto third country nationals as well, up to and including the application of lawless repression to them.
Let it be further noted that Russians in today’s Georgia are likely to systematically become victims of lawlessness regardless of whether they have ever been to Abkhazia and South Ossetia. On more than one occasion I've happened to talk about the fact that virtually everyone who comes from Russia to Georgia on private business or to visit relatives, is a potential object of provocations by Georgian special services and really risks ending up behind bars. They plant weapons, false money or drugs on our citizens, trump up criminal charges against them and then throw them in jail. Thus, P. P. Siukayev, V. V. Vakhaniya and P. G. Bliadze have been sentenced to imprisonment. The provocative actions against another Russian, Y. M. Kenkadze, in October 2009 were stopped only thanks to his timely application to the Russian Interests Section in Tbilisi for help. Y. A. Marchuk and Y. D. Skrylnikov were arrested in June this year and are under investigation.
Through the Swiss side, representing the interests of Russia in Georgia, we continue to seek an end to lawlessness against our citizens.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry again strongly advises Russians not to travel to Georgia in the current circumstances.
September 1, 2010
