Court of Georgia’s occupied Tskhinvali region drops all charges against Georgian civic activist
Georgian civic activist Tamara Mearakishvili has been unable to leave the Russian-occupied Tskhinvali region for almost two years. Photo: Tamara Mearakishvili Facebook page.
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Tskhinvali City Court has dropped all charges against Georgian civic activist Tamara Mearakishvili living in the currently Russian-occupied Akhalgori district
Mearakishvili was charged with illegally receiving the “citizenship of South Ossetia (Tskhinvali)” via alleged fake documentation, in addition to “possessing Georgian citizenship and of blackmailing the ruling party of occupied Tskhinvali.”
She had been banned from leaving the region for about two years.
Akhalgori district court dropped the charges against Mearakishvili in July 2019. However, the prosecution appealed the verdict to Tskhinvali court.
In May 2018 Georgian Public Defender Nino Lomjaria nominated Mearakishvili for the United Nations Human Rights Prize and Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize for her "outstanding contribution to defending the rights of the conflict-affected population”.
The Embassy of Netherlands to Georgia awarded Mearakishvili with the Human Rights Tulip award and a monetary prize back in December 2018.