Social Justice Centre: 'political crisis, inflation, pandemic lead Georgian citizens to hopelessness'

The Social Justice Centre (SJC) has released a report about human rights challenges in Georgia on International Human Rights Day marked today.

 In its report the SJC says that in 2021 Georgia faced a political crisis, which was calmed dawn neither with the April 19 political agreement mediated by international partners, nor with the local self-government elections.

Based on the political crisis, the following issues were completely omitted from the agenda:

• Disturbing human and social consequences of the pandemic
• The dire social and economic situation in the country, which has worsened in the wake of inflation
• Issues of reforms aimed at protection of human rights and equality

The SJC says that political polarizations and radicalisation were particularly palpable in the context of the self-government elections.

In the pre-election period, the working strategies of the parties were based more on the perspective of the state of emergency, in which the real challenges and needs of the cities and regions were completely ignored”, reads the report.

The deep and unresolved political crisis and polarizations, the undemocratic attempts of the ruling party to retain power, the pandemic, the deep economic crisis and the inflation have worsened the lives of the Georgian citizens.

It is clear that the state is unable to respond to various types of social conflict and dissatisfaction with long-term social reforms, which ultimately create an unstable political and economic environment and lead to social hopelessness”, says the SJC.

Read the full report here: