After the events of November 28, 2024, many Georgian citizens became victims of torture and inhuman treatment. Many of their rights were violated while they were under the effective control of the state - namely, while in detention. The beating of individuals was of a systemic nature. Another form of humiliating treatment directed at participants in peaceful protests also has a systemic character - forced stripping and the performance of squats in detention facilities, including against women. People refrain from speaking publicly about this problem; however, from the accounts of those who decided to speak out, it is clear that such treatment of detainees is systemic.

International Practice Regarding Forms and Rules of Stripping

According to the interpretation of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), during a full check, a person should not be required to strip different parts of the body simultaneously.^[1] According to the order of the Minister of Internal Affairs, full stripping of the person to be checked is impermissible during a personal search.^[2] In response to the Public Defender’s 2022 report on human rights, which discussed the problem of fully stripping individuals, the Parliament of Georgia adopted a resolution in 2023, noting that the Parliament of Georgia shares the relevant recommendations of the Public Defender of Georgia and asks the Ministry of Justice of Georgia to “strengthen the monitoring of the enforcement of those norms of penitentiary institution regulations that regulate the issue of not stripping different parts of a prisoner’s body simultaneously during a full check”.

Forcing full body stripping is assessed as an illegal and humiliating search practice in a report published by Amnesty International. The European Court of Human Rights has established numerous violations regarding full stripping, explaining that in specific cases, especially when stripping is accompanied by humiliating and offensive behavior, such conduct violates Article 3 of the Convention, which prohibits torture, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

Contrary to these principles, the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of “Georgian Dream”, Mr. Alexander Darakhvelidze, when asked by a journalist regarding the full stripping and forced squats of one of the detained persons, stated that “in any facility, when a person is being admitted, stripping is mandatory”.

The motivation for starting to speak openly and loudly about this problem was to ease the process of being in detention and undergoing similar procedures for others. In this blog, we will tell you about the people who went through this path and were subjected to inhuman treatment by the system. This list is incomplete, as some of the detainees do not wish to speak publicly about this issue.

Trends of Stripping in the Georgian Justice System

The practice regarding the stripping of individuals is as follows: when a person is detained, during their search, full stripping occurs, including recorded cases where stripping takes place accompanied by humiliating and dignity-violating comments. In most cases, stripping is followed by a demand to perform squats. Despite the fact that according to internationally established standards, stripping should occur only in exceptional cases based on reasonable suspicion, and not simultaneously but step-by-step by stripping specific zones, detainees in Georgia were fully stripped all at once. There was a case where the practice of full stripping was used during a search of a person's home when they were not detained at all.

Specific Stories Regarding Stripping Practices

1. Mr. Giorgi Miminoshvili - Journalist

Mr. Giorgi Miminoshvili is a journalist for TV Pirveli; he was arrested on November 22, 2025, on Rustaveli Avenue. The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) accuses him of disobeying a lawful request from a police officer. According to his lawyer, Mr. Miminoshvili was fully stripped in the isolator and forced to do squats. The detainee requested the opportunity to contact a lawyer, but he was not given the chance to do so.

2. Mr. Guram Kukhilava - Active participant in pro-European protests

75-year-old Mr. Guram Kukhilava was detained under administrative rules on November 3, 2025. He was stopped near the Rustaveli metro station; after an inspection, a face mask was found in his pocket, and he was taken to the department. According to him, he was stripped and insulted in the department, and then made to sign a protocol and released.

After his release, he told online media outlet “Publika” in an interview: “I was detained near the Rustaveli metro station. This wasn’t even an arrest. No one, neither young nor old, could take a shot. They took my phone and I couldn’t do anything. They insulted a 75-year-old man so much... I will come out on Rustaveli tonight and write it on a banner. I felt so bad last night, what they were saying to me and what they were doing to me... I cannot tell everything in detail, it’s a shame on my part to even talk about it. They read me something there, inspected me, undressed me - how can I explain it to you - they stripped me. The police did not look like police; insults, everything that could be... I signed it and they let me go”.

3. Ms. Lika Basilaia-Shavgulidze - Member of the Board of Trustees of the Public Broadcaster, Journalist

Ms. Lika Basilaia was detained on October 22, 2025, at a protest in support of journalists. Judge Nino Enukidze sentenced her to 5 days of imprisonment. The MIA accused her of insulting a police officer, which Ms. Basilaia herself denied, explaining that she only used the term “insolent” because she was angry about the illegal detention of people and the fact that police officers were doing “Russian work”.

Ms. Lika Basilaia recounted on a television broadcast that she was stripped during the inspection.

4. Mr. Gela Khasaia - Civil Activist

Mr. Gela Khasaia is a civil activist and a member of the “Coalition for Change”. He is from Abkhazia, born and raised in Gali. As his friends recount, Mr. Khasaia was very active even during his studies at Sokhumi University and loudly stated everywhere that “Abkhazia is Georgia”, including to his classmates. He worked as a guide and told tourists visiting Abkhazia about the Russian occupation. In 2015, he had to leave Abkhazia and continued the struggle against Russia from Tbilisi. During the protests against the “Russian Law”, he was ambushed and attacked near his home, though no one has been punished for this.

Mr. Gela Khasaia was detained under criminal law on September 30, 2025. The Prosecutor’s Office charged him with infliction of  less serious harm to health by a group of persons, which carries a sentence of 4 to 6 years of imprisonment. According to the lawyer, the case contains no neutral evidence, including video recordings, confirming Mr. Khasaia’s guilt. The court ordered pretrial detention as a preventive measure. At the court hearing, Mr. Khasaia and his lawyer spoke about the circumstances of the detention and facts of gross violations of the defendant’s procedural rights. Among these, Mr. Gela Khasaia recounted that he was stripped twice, in different rooms.

5. Ms. Nino Datashvili - Civil Education Teacher

Ms. Nino Datashvili was detained under criminal law on June 20, 2025; she is accused of assaulting the court security officer. In reality, Ms. Nino Datashvili herself accuses the officers of using physical force against her, for which video evidence exists. The court ordered her imprisonment as a preventive measure, and she spent 4 months in prison; the Prosecutor’s Office only requested her release on bail after Ms. Nino Datashvili’s health condition worsened in prison.

At the court process, Ms. Nino Datashvili recalled the details of her detention: “They met me at the bus stop, did not introduce me to my rights, snatched my phone, they were not wearing uniforms, I couldn’t understand what was happening, I didn’t realize it was the police. They didn’t introduce me to my rights. I needed the phone to contact my child. I was worried about the child and was asking for the phone. They put me in the car by deception, saying ‘we will let you call’ [...]

When they transferred me to the police, I was asking them very much to give me the right to call my child or a lawyer, first so the child wouldn't worry - as the child would be looking for me when getting home and wouldn’t be able to get in, and secondly, because I wanted to protect my rights, I have the right to have a lawyer.

They stripped me. I wanted a lawyer to come first and for me to get acquainted with things and then sign things. What stress they kept me in, the cynical attitude, they behaved inhumanly on the way, why were they treating me like this, what was I doing. I was simply asking them to give me the right to call my child or a lawyer. At least one of them”.

6. Mr. Luka Kintsurashvili - Animal Rights Defender

Mr. Luka Kintsurashvili was detained on March 31, 2025, on Vazha-Pshavela Avenue. He was asked for access to a Telegram chat and a bag search. He called a lawyer for consultation, who explained to the law enforcement officers that they would be there soon so the investigative action could be conducted in their presence. After this, the police officers snatched Mr. Luka Kintsurashvili’s phone and detained him.

According to the lawyer, after the detention, he was forced to strip twice, once at the Vake-Saburtalo police station, and a second time when being admitted to the temporary detention facility. Additionally, Mr. Kintsurashvili was not given the opportunity to contact his family or lawyer. Consequently, for 6 hours after the detention, Mr. Luka’s location was unknown to them.

7. Mr. Giorgi Chikvaidze - Businessman

Mr. Giorgi Chikvaidze was detained under criminal law on March 11, 2025. A person once close to “Georgian Dream” and its active supporter, but later, according to him, a businessman in conflict with Bidzina Ivanishvili, he is charged with large-scale embezzlement by a group with prior agreement using official position. He has been ordered to be imprisoned as a preventive measure.

The materials of Mr. Giorgi Chikvaidze’s criminal case was studied by “Transparency International - Georgia”, which published an analysis where the main question is: how a potentially civil dispute was transformed into a politically motivated criminal prosecution.

Mr. Giorgi Chikvaidze himself stated at one of the trials: “It turned out that I was not the only victim of dignity-violating actions, so I felt it necessary to make this statement. On March 11, when I was brought into this facility, I was also stripped and forced to do squats, after which I was put through a scanner. What we are watching today from this tyrannical regime, how it tortures political leaders and fighters for freedom or threatens them with arrest, is criminal and it is Russian. My solidarity to each of them!”

8. Ms. Elene Khoshtaria - Politician

Ms. Elene Khoshtaria is the leader of “Droa”, one of the opposition political parties. She was detained under administrative rules in March 2025 on Rustaveli Avenue. Later, she posted on her personal social network describing that she was physically assaulted at the police station on Ramishvili Street. She also wrote that in the department, after she refused to cooperate, the police officers tightly tied her hands behind her back with handcuffs. Then Nino Chkhartishvili and Davit Bolotashvili caused injuries to her jaws and teeth. According to her explanation, an even more humiliating episode occurred in Digomi, in the temporary detention facility, where, also against her will and through a brigade called from the police, her hands were tied back again, they were wrestling her, and they fully stripped her.

Ms. Elene Khoshtaria is currently in pretrial detention due to an inscription made on Mr. Kakha Kaladze’s campaign banner, which implies a sentence of up to 1 year of imprisonment. Ms. Khoshtaria is also charged on the basis of “sabotage”, “assisting in hostile activities for a foreign country”, and “violation of state secrecy rules”, which carries a sentence of seven to fifteen years of imprisonment.

9. Ms. Nutsa Makharadze - Civil Activist

Ms. Nutsa Makharadze is a civil activist. On January 12, 2025, she was near the Babilo restaurant, where a corporate party for judges was being celebrated. The people gathered there were protesting political decisions made by the court. She was detained on the pretext of disobeying a police officer’s order. On the way, Nutsa was warned by another detainee in the police car that she would definitely be stripped once brought to the site. This happened - female law enforcement officers told Nutsa in the detention facility that she had to undress. According to her, the law enforcement officers did not prepare her in advance that she would be stripped, and she was faced with the fact. Furthermore, they did not explain the legal basis for the request. Nutsa assesses this episode as humiliating and offensive.

10. Ms. Kristine Botkoveli (Nancy Woland) - Civil Activist

Ms. Nancy Woland is a civil activist and the founder of the Facebook group “Daitove”. Ms. Nancy’s case is different from the others because she was stripped not in a detention facility or a police station, but in her own home. The police entered her home for a search on December 4, 2024, and demanded she strip for a personal search. Ms. Nancy herself assesses the coercion to fully strip during the search as psychological violence.

11. Mr. Avtandil Titvinidze - Protest Participant

Mr. Avtandil Titvinidze was detained on the morning of November 30, 2024, at approximately 7:00 AM in front of the Marriott Hotel on Rustaveli Avenue. The small entrepreneur from Gori was standing at a protest in Tbilisi for the first time on the evening of November 29, 2024; he arrived at Rustaveli in the evening and stayed until morning. During the arrest, he was beaten. According to him, everyone who wanted to was hitting him.

The car in which he was first locked up was the “torture minibus” already described by many beaten demonstrators, where masked men mercilessly beat the detainees. Throughout the time he spent there, blood was continuously flowing from his nose and he suffered from severe pain. According to him, at the headquarters, they were asking him to sign some documents, which he did not sign because “they brought neither a lawyer, nor a doctor, nor gave the right to call”. There were numerous threats. More precisely, Mr. Avtandil describes this episode like this: “If you don't sign, we know what we will do, they took me into a doctor’s room where there are no cameras, first they stood and looked at me, then they told me to undress, I undressed, pull down your underwear, I pulled it down, then squat down, I squatted - when they realized I wasn't afraid, now dress and they brought me back”.

12. Ms. Nino Bardzimashvili - Translator and Amateur Mountaineer

Ms. Nino Bardzimashvili was detained on November 19, 2025, at a march in support of Mate Devidze on Kakabadze Street, and on November 21, the court sentenced her to two days of imprisonment. She recalls: “They warned me that they would strip me by force; I preferred undressing myself over having it done by overcoming me. At first, they came in with persuasions, then they left and left the women, hoping I would agree. Then the head of the isolator came: ‘Were you waiting for my arrival? Why are you caressing her? Put the handcuffs on’, he said and put the handcuffs on me himself. Then the men left again and the women stayed”.

13. Mr. Nadim Khmaladze - Georgian volunteer fighting in Ukraine

Mr. Nadim Khmaladze was detained at a protest against the so-called “Russian Law” in 2023. After people started actively talking about the repressive method of full stripping in detention facilities, Mr. Nadim Khmaladze wrote on his social network: “Saying it is not a shame! I did not know if this was illegal. I was also stripped when I was detained at the March protests!”.

14. Mr. Archil Muselianci - Prisoner of Conscience

Mr. Archil Muselianci was detained on November 30, 2024, initially under administrative rules and later under criminal law. He remains in prison today; the Tbilisi City Court sentenced him to 4 years of imprisonment.

At one of the trials, he spoke about the humiliating treatment toward him and noted that before and after every transfer to the court, he is stripped and forced to do squats - “during every transfer to the court and from the court, my full stripping occurs [...]".

15. Mr. Anton Chechin - Prisoner of Conscience

Mr. Anton Chechin was detained on December 3, 2024; he was accused of “purchase-possession” of a narcotic substance and was sentenced to 8.5 years of imprisonment. His case was studied by “Transparency International - Georgia”, which published an analysis mentioning numerous violations.

Mr. Anton Chechin said at one of the court trials that two individuals took him into a “warehouse-like”, small-sized cabinet. Both were wearing masks and gloves. According to Mr. Anton’s lawyer, they explained to Mr. Anton that they had to check his oral cavity for his own safety. After this, he was almost fully stripped, after which one of them checked Mr. Anton’s oral cavity using gloves.