Secret recordings of Georgian citizens destroyed
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Forty five disks and two Winchester drives with secret video recordings of the private lives of Georgian citizens have been destroyed at the Interior Ministry today.
The rest of the materials have been handed to the Chief Prosecutor’s Office to investigate.
The secret footage of the private lives of Georgian officials and citizens were illegally recorded and obtained over several years of illegal surveillance.
Today, Interior Minister Alexander Chikaidze said the content of the destroyed recordings were mostly of a sexual nature. Five hundred and ninety additional disks have been given to the Prosecutor’s Office.
Georgia's Deputy Chief prosecutor said the office would start investigating the recordings as soon as possible.
A Temporary State Commission, that oversaw the handling of secret recordings, called for an investigation to find out who gathered the footage and why they were kept.
"No more illegal recordings will be made in the future,” the Interior Minister said, adding that if this happened, the people involved would face harsh punishments.
The Interior Ministry housed about 635 CDs containing more than 750 hours of secret video recordings. They were filmed over a number of years, from 2007 to 2012.
Some recordings were graphic and featured sexual relations including homosexual activity and out-of-marriage-sex filmed from hotel rooms and other locations.
The recordings were discovered in weapons storage in western Georgia in June last year.
To read more about the secret recordings, see the article.
Human rights and watchdog groups have called on the Georgian Government to create a law to limit the Government’s capabilities to carry out illegal surveillance.
Eleven ex-officials have been found guilty of illegally filming and hiding a secret cache of recordings among weapons storage, which were found in Western Georgia in June last year.
The Chief Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia has launched an investigation following allegations the Rustavi 2 television headquarter has been bugged.
UPDATED: 20:57: The Georgian Parliament voted to postpone the adoption of a new law on surveillance for four months. After much debate, lawmakers decided to discuss the final version of the law in February instead of April, after 65 MPs voted in favour while 31 voted against.
Georgia’s President Giorgi Margvelashvili has publically announced his disappointment in the delaying of adopting changes to the country’s surveillance law.
Georgia’s Parliament passed President Giorgi Margvelashvili’s notes on the country’s surveillance law with 95 votes in favour to one against to extend the deadline from November 1 to December 1 instead of being adopted on February 28, 2015.
Georgian officials are investigating how a secret video showing the torture and sexual abuse of two inmates by law enforcement officers in 2011 was this week leaked on the internet.
Georgia’s Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili says any word that discredits the country's state security services weakens Georgia. He also stressed "certain progress” had been made regarding the investigation about the leak of surveillance videos.
United States (US) Ambassador to Georgia Ian Kelly says the current Georgian Government is "very concerned” about the leak of surveillance videos illegally taped by the previous authorities and have asked the US to help resolve the problem.
An expert from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has arrived in Georgia to work with a special group investigating the leak of several private and intimate videos.
Today Parliament of Georgia approved amendments to the surveillance law that outlined tough punishments for those who taped, possessed or spread videos showing a person’s private life.
The amendments were approved at its first reading.
Georgian lawmakers have presented a document that legally assesses facts of torture, inhumane treatment and other human rights violations that took place over eight years under the previous government and offer recommendations so that these atrocities never happen again.