08 November 2007, 19:26
Human Rights Watch: Georgia police applied excessive force to disperse the meetings
The international organization Human Rights Watch thinks that the police of Georgia used excessive force at dispersing the meetings in Tbilisi.
"It was a peaceful meeting. However, there is information that apart from water cannons and tear gas, the police was shooting rubber bullets in Tbilisi, which is causing our special concern," the "Echo Moskvy" Radio quotes Rachel Denber, deputy director of the Human Rights Watch's department for Europe and Central Asia.
Ms Denber has emphasized that militaries in fact shot at the backs of escaping people. Besides, many doctors mark in conversations with journalists that the gas that was applied against demonstrators in Tbilisi was of stronger effect on human organism than the traditional harmless "Cheryomukha".
In the course of dispersal of the opposition's protest action in Tbilisi on November 7, the Ombudsman ("People's Defender") of Georgia was beaten by special agents, the IA "Georgia Online" reports.
"I saw with my own eyes that people who fell to the ground were beaten with boots and truncheons. I tried to stop them, but during one such attempt I was myself severely beaten. And it was done deliberately. Those who were beating me knew that I am the People's Defender," Ombudsman Sozar Subari stated at a special briefing.
Meanwhile, the authorities of Georgia do not share the concern of human rights activists. Thus, one of the leaders of the Parliament's majority Georgiy Bokeria said: "The responsibility is on those political leaders who provoked and led the people."
