Secret prisoners of Georgia, or a Great secret for the West

The Russian MFA keeps insisting upon the existence of an unpublished Human Rights Watch report on the observance of human rights in Georgia. While the international human rights defenders are denying the shadowy text, the South-Ossetian ombudsman is accusing the Georgian authorities of kidnapping the Ossetians, who are kept in secret prisons, and the Armenians suspect the Georgian jailers of an intention to kill the condemned Javakhk activist Vaagn Chakhalyan.

The day before the anniversary of Georgia's attack at Tskhinval, State Secretary/Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Grigori Karasin, in his interview to radio Golos Rossii (The Voice of Russia), confirmed the existence of a so far unpublished report on the situation in Georgia made by the Human Rights Watch international organization.

According to the Russian official, the foreign policy administration is aware of the expert research. "It reveals the level of unstableness of the situation in this sphere in Georgia", - deputy minister stated. He also underlined, that "the existence of this report has been denied so far, though we have got conclusive evidence that such report was issued and that it is physically available".

According to him, the Human Rights Watch report might be interesting not only for Russia but for the international community as well, in whose eyes President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili, despite everything, remains "the torch of democracy". Why is the information about the violation of the human rights concealed, the more so, as it is confirmed in written form? Is it needed to support the regime that has already done so much evil?

The first one to mention the Human Rights Watch secret report at the end of July was Head of the Russian MFA Sergey Lavrov. "A couple of years ago, there was a report made by the Council of Europe, which uncovered many sores of Saakashvili's regime and his authoritarianism. I am also intended to check the recently discovered information about the report made by the Human Rights Watch non-governmental organization on the democratic situation in Georgia. However, unlike other reports of this respectful organization, it was never disclosed but it was secretly delivered to the Georgian authorities", - he said.

Lavrov's statement was refuted by the human rights organization. "According to his statement, he believes wrongly that Human Rights Watch had prepared a report on the democratic situation in Georgia, which was delivered to the Georgian government but was never published". The organization underlines that Lavrov's statement "is not precise, and HRW's relevant analytical articles and documents concerning the human rights situation in Georgia can be found on our web-site". Besides, according to the refutation, HRW's world practice, including Georgia and Russia, often implies communication between the corresponding governments; however, this kind of information is generally disclosed.

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