Secret recordings of Georgian citizens investigated, demands Commission
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A Temporary State Commission that oversees the handling of secret recordings of the private lives of Georgian officials and citizens, has recommended an investigation is launched to find out who and why gathered and kept secret recordings.
After today's sitting, Commission members announced their strong desire an investigation is launched into illegal recordings obtained over several years through illegal surveillance. The Commission specifically wanted recordings of private life situations including a sexual nature to be destroyed.
Latest data claimed the Interior Ministry housed about 635 CDs with more than 750 hours of secret video recordings. Of these, only two CDs contained recordings of the private lives of Georgian citizens.
Deputy Interior Minister Levan Izoria said those two CDs would be destroyed on January 31.
"The CDs will be destroyed by putting them into a shredding machine in the presence of media and members of the Commission, like the previous ones were. The rest CDs will be handed to the State Prosecutor’s Office for investigation,” Izoria said.
Commission members believed the remaining files involved secret recordings of meetings and conversations of citizens including politicians, journalists and civil society members.
More than 110 CDs of illegally recorded information about Georgian citizens were destroyed publicly on September 5, 2013. The CDs contained 144 files with more than 181 hours of secret recordings of private lives of citizens secretary filmed between 2007 and July 2012.
On January 31, the Commission will stop their investigation and issue a report about the Commission’s work and its recommendations.
Temporary State Commission members are: Interior Minister Aleksandre Chikaidze, Public Defender Ucha Nanuashvili, Inspector for Protection of Personal Data Tamar Kaldani, Justice Minister Tea Tsulukiani, Tbilisi Court of Appeals judge Merab Gabinashvili and Deputy Chief Prosecutor Irakli Shotadze. Civil society representatives Eka Gigauri, executive director of Transparency International Georgia, editor-in-chief of Rezonansi newspaper Lasha Tugushi and head of Research Center for Elections and Political Technologies Kakhi Kakhishvili are also Commission members.
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.
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.