President says police should inform public over ‘criminals’ of sexual abuse and torture videos
By Tatia Megeneishvili
Thursday, October 29
The President of Georgia, Giorgi Margvelashvili, has addressed law enforcement agencies and requested that they publicly identify the people who had been filming or spreading the torture and sexual abuse videos under the former state leadership, as well as those who were committing such crimes.
The statement was made by Margvelashvili after his meeting with the Public Defender, Ucha Nanuashvili.
According to the President, the public should know what kinds of legal persecution were carried out against the criminals.
“It is sad that we live in an environment in which we have to daily face those disgusting videos on the Internet and television. It creates a stressful environment for the whole of society. I would like to emphasize that we condemn violence, all forms of sadism and the dissemination of this information as well,” stated Margvelashvili.
The President stated that due to the high public interest, all law enforcement agencies should report to society regarding the violence depicted in those catastrophic videos, which took a systematic nature under the previous government.
“We need to know how many people are - or were — prosecuted and how many people have been charged, in order for us to strengthen the feeling that sadists and abusers are fairly displaced and the society, as well as the political system, will never tolerate such acts as we have seen in those awful videos,” stated Margvelashvili.
According to Nanuashvili, during the meeting two important topics were discussed.
“An investigation regarding the videos of torture shall come to an end, as only a small part of the case is being investigated and the single cases are completed. Also, the dissemination of the videos, which appeared recently online on Ukrainian web portals, shall be limited using all available methods, as they are very counter-productive and we believe that it increases the risk of creating tension and violence,” stated Nanuashvili.
Thousands of torture and sexual abuse videos filmed and used for blackmail under the previous state leadership had been destroyed by the current state administration. However, some videos (only those depicting torture), were saved for investigation.
However, several videos have again been spread on the Internet recently; an investigation into the release is ongoing.
