NGOs address Parliament Speaker over violence against female MPs
By Natalia Kochiashvili
Friday, July 23
During the July 18 special session of the parliament, when the Minister of Internal Affairs Vakhtang Gomelauri was preparing to address the tribune, MPs Shalva Papuashvili and Irakli Zarkua used physical force against female MPs Tina Bokuchva and Nona Mamulashvili, who arrived at the rostrum and did not allow the minister to continue his speech. The hearing failed; Media representatives and opposition MPs brought photos and posters of Lekso Lashkarava to the session hall. They demanded the resignation of PM Irakli Gharibashvili and the Interior Minister, which led to a controversy in the parliament.
The protest of the opposition and the journalists was followed by a verbal confrontation between the majority and the members of the opposition. In particular, one of the UNM Bokuchava, tried to get to the speaker’s seat, however, Georgian Dream’s Shalva Papuashvili, used force to remove her from the territory. Other MPs,including Levan Mgaloblishvili, verbally abused MP Ana Tsitlidze.
Women MPs from the United National Movement appealed to the Ethics Council of Parliament over the incident. Parliament Speaker Kakha Kuchava told a bureau meeting on July 22 that the issue would be discussed by the Ethics Council and the Gender Equality Council. Asked whether Mamulashvili violated the Code of Conduct by climbing the table, Kordzaia said that her behavior was completely within the scope of freedom of expression. Bokuchava doesn’t rule out appealing to the court.
Thirty NGOs and political organizations addressed the Speaker of Parliament over this issue as well. The signatories of the statement consider that the silence and inaction of Kuchava is unacceptable, which encourages violence. They called on him to use all available mechanisms for an adequate response, ‘so that the abusive MPs Shalva Papuashvili and Irakli Zarkua are held accountable for their abusive and violent actions against female MPs.’
“The situation is aggravated by the fact that Shalva Papuashvili and Irakli Zarkua do not even realize the violent nature and essence of their actions. Unfortunately, Irakli Kadagishvili, a member of the Ethics Council of the Parliament, also made an unqualified statement; The actions of Papuashvili and Zarkua should be evaluated by the members of the Ethics Council,” the statement reads.
The statement reads that Levan Mgaloblishvili physically restricted the movement of Tsitlidze and Bokuchava, and the latter was deprived of a protest poster. The footage confirming the above was spread by all media outlets.
They write that human rights organizations and activists have been fighting for gender equality for many years and violence against women politicians undermines the success of the fight for equality. According to NGOs MPs from the highest legislature have publicly and demonstratively encouraged the violent treatment of women; “The public was shown that a woman's ‘unacceptable’ protest might be suppressed by a man with physical force.”
The authors of the statement wanted to read the text in front of the tribune in front of the Parliament, but they were not allowed to do so by the Parliamentary Security Service and were not allowed in the building. As Kuchava explained later, they were restricted because of the security regime, which has been in force since 2016 and is valid when there is a danger of disrupting the session.
At yesterday’s sitting of the Parliamentary Bureau, Shalva Papuashvili denied violence against Bokuchava: “On my part it was not violence, it was the suppression of direct aggression from Ms. Tina, which could not be stopped by 2 bailiffs.” he said, adding that preventing Bokuchava's aggression was not only his right but also his ‘moral obligation.’
According to Zarkua, climbing on the parliamentary table is ethically unacceptable for him; everyone has the opportunity to protest, ‘although it has its forms.’
“To me, this is an insult to the voters, including their constituents. On the contrary, I helped nicely with the arrival… Everyone had the opportunity to express their protest, vision, opinion or task, but it is. It is not necessary to run barefoot on tables. It is unacceptable and I will continue it like this, it does not matter who is offended,” Zarkua said, adding that he didn’t have to insult anyone. According to him, the code of ethics was violated by the people ‘who tried to do somersaults at the tribune.’
MP Nino Tsilosani, Chairperson of the Parliamentary Gender Equality Council, has taken the initiative to discuss whether there was violence against abovementioned 3 MPs on July 18 in the Parliament of Georgia. According to Tsilosani, representatives of NGOs that were not allowed to enter the parliament on July 22 will also be invited to the sitting.
“Let's gather in a closed working format and I present our arguments, as well as hear your arguments as to why, in your opinion, it was violence against women,” speaking at the parliamentary bureau session, she said that members of the opposition were engaged in discrediting issues of violence against women. According to Tsilosani, saying that no one can touch a woman, even when she may have committed a crime and the bailiff is trying to stop her, it deceives society into believing that a woman has the right to everything, which is the worst interpretation of this issue.
