National Preventive Mechanism of admission of juvenile and male prisoners is carried out in the same reception and the said procedure is done by the same personnel. In 2012 the Ministry of Corrections, Probation and legal Assistance of Georgia announced about “individual program of sentence-serving” for juveniles but unfortunately, this failed completely. It resulted in a riot of juveniles in juvenile establishment (N11). In November-December 2012 we interviewed 13 juveniles in N8 prison for juveniles who explained that the riot was caused by facts of inhuman and treatment and torture. Case: M.B. 17 years-old, as he said he was detained by Tbilisi Didube-Chugureti police department on 28/11/2011. He describes a fact of physical assault in the police station where he passed out and “received scars on his arm and leg”. On December 1st, 2011 he was taken to N8 prison. And later he describes facts of physical assault in juvenile prison: “when I was brought here, on December 1st, 2011, I was not held below and when I was brought up here on duty there was Giorgi Razmadze. First he brought me to showers to search me, forced me to squat, verbally assaulted me, saying that whatever they wanted they would get, they would do, that there lions …. Wolves, he verbally abused me and started to beat me, beating and kicking me; he beat me when I was undressed; he was beating me in my head and body for 5-6 minutes and kicking me, then he took me back to a cell. Beating was systematic on the part of this Razmadze. On his duty he beat me every day, he beat others as well, but most of all he beat me; he was on duty once every three days; he forced me to live through such days that… he used to beat me twice on his duty. He did not have any reason, he used to stand at the cell, put his ear to a door saying why we were making noise when no one made any noise, immediately he would look into and come into the cell and beat us in the cell; he did not beat anyone as much as he beat me. Razmadze threatened us that he would “put us on a bottle”, that when we become adults they would take care of us there, visit us there…. In the middle of March, 2012 I was taken to Avchala facility. When I got there, I was brought to a room, there were Dimitri Kereselidze, Davit khukhia, Tamaz Jachvadze, Dimitri Kharabadze and of course, Ramaz Kakushadze, in room 3 or 4 of a newly-built building; they asked me why I was arrested, where did I get a weapon from; when I told them that I had found it, that probably irritated him and Kereselidze started beating me; Tamaz Jachvadze was also beating me; he started to beat me in the head and face, then I fell and they kicked me; I was really confused why I was being beaten; They were saying that nobody finds a weapon in a street like this and were beating me for 4-5 minutes, then told me to go and say nothing more otherwise this would seem nothing compared to what would inflict. I was kept there just for 3-4 months and I was not beaten any more. At every admission everyone was beaten up; surveillance camera were mounted in classrooms in school; for every smile detected by a camera children were taken down and beaten by Ramaz, Tamaz, Dimitri, Dimitri Kharabadze, Giorgi Khukhia. Gocha assaulted them verbally. They beat so that / in a way that no marks were left on the face. There was L. who said that he did not want to go to school and he was beaten so much that he was brought up by those on duty, his clothes were torn. As to psychologists, everyone said that one should not say anything that may cause problems, as they the psychologists would go and tell them. One of the reasons for a protest was that they made a parent to squat; but first of all it was beating, also that one should have swim in a pool in trousers and vests, as they said women passed there and it was indecent. And this was happening when workers that were building some small medical facility walked around in just shorts. Every parent was made to squat, and many of them stopped coming for a visit. Certain type of food was prohibited. Every newly-admitted inmate was beaten up, they were beating everyone…”. During the focused interview M. B. presented the following complaints: “sometimes I think that maybe the situation is the same and fear engulfs me, sometimes at night I dream that my family and friends are dead; that sometimes someone is following me, that I am falling somewhere. Many times I was woken at night by a dream, my heart was racing, now this ceased, I was always tense, now somehow we breathed freely. When they open a slot in a cell door to send in food immediately I inwardly flinch thinking that I have forgotten to stand up. Sometimes I remember these things. Then I could not sleep at all, now sleep is considerably better, there is no comparison..”. The above shows presence of posttraumatic disorder and the person needs to be included in the psychological rehabilitation program. We shall note that other juveniles also contacted us with similar stories and facts of repeated physical assault and inhuman treatment. Given the above, at this stage and in order to document facts of torture and inhuman treatment in accordance with the principles of the Istanbul Protocol, as well as implementation of the treatment-rehabilitation program we consider intervention of multidisciplinary group of experts into adult establishments and juvenile prisons to be necessary. www.ombudsman.ge NPM Report

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