Georgian prisoners go on hunger strike

Georgy Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza

Prisoners in several jails across Georgia are going on hunger strikes. Several dozen people are taking part, including those who were sentenced due to a law against so-called "thieves-in-law" crime bosses which was adopted in 2006.

The law is a unique phenomenon for the justice world. It stipulates punishment, inclduing long jail sentences, not for a certain crime, but for “belonging to the world of thieves-in-law..” It means not a certain bandit group, but a community which is based on “values of the thievish world.” According to the law, a person can be sentenced to prison at least for 4 years only for the fact that he answers “Yes” to the investigator’s question: “Do you respect thieves-in-law?”

The new law was often criticized by European politicians, but the former president was absolutely resolute, referring to the fact that this ideology turned Georgia into a seminary of crime and bandits’ outrage. “Otherwise we will never defeat thieves-in-laws and dispel their romantic image among young people,” the supporters of Saakashvili said. In 9 years of governance of the United National Movement the authorities managed to purges all crime bosses from the country, and those who didn’t escape are imprisoned in “special isolation cells” under the Interior Ministry’s building.

When the coalition of Georgian Dream came to office, it amnestied more than half of all prisoners, but it didn’t touch on “anti-thieves" law which enabled the police to arrest a person for a friendly chat on a phone with a former schoolmate who became a thief in law and escaped to Russia or Europe at the beginning of the nationals’ struggle against thieves. Striking prisoners demand cancelation of the law and adoption of more democratic norms which correspond to the European concept of human rights.

The hunger strike was organized by “watchers”, these are thieves in law who have no special “status.” The new minister for execution of punishments, Sozar Subari, says that it is impossible to get rid of “crime lords” from prisons: “There will always be prisoners who influence others.” At the same time, the minister stands against cancelation of the law, understanding that it will cause annoying reaction in the society and improvement of the former ruling party. Saakashvili’s supporters will be quick to accuse Georgian Dream of “returning the country into the damned criminal past” with its criminal fights and infinite influence of criminal bosses on all spheres of social life. On the other hand, the hunger strike of several prisoners is a poor smoke over the volcano; and the peaceful protest can turn into a wide-scale riot and bloodshed in prisons.