By the decision of the Minister of the Interior, Vakhtang Gomelauri, Zviad Kharazisjvili, nicknamed “Khareba”, will be engaged in the election-related process.

On 30 September 2024, the Minister of the Interior issued an Ordinance [1], titled “On some measures aimed at ensuring the elections to be held in a free, secure and peaceful environment”. Pursuant to the Ordinance, in Tbilisi and other regions of Georgia, some task forces responsible for “the prevention of and response to the violations of law”, so-called “territorial task forces” will be created.

The Minister of the Interior would issue similar acts during the past elections too. However, the novelty is that unlike the elections in 2016 [2] and 2020 [3], this time the territorial task forces will include not the heads of the territorial units of the Special Tasks Department (STD), but rather the personally assigned representatives of the STD Director. The office of the STD Director [4] is still held by Zviad Kharazishvili, a person who has been sanctioned [5] by the US Department of Treasury for serious human rights abuses, the one who has been known for his brutal treatment of political opponents and peaceful protesters.

It is alarming that the Minister of the Interior not only has not dismissed Z. Kharazishvili from the office so far, but also has designated him as a de-facto overseer of the election-related processes. In this context, it is also alarming that pursuant to Article 6 of the Attachment to the above Ordinance, the police force may take “preventive and reactive measures” including in the event of “gathering the crowds in the proximity of polling stations”. This means that “Khareba” and the “task forces” under his control may go into action in cases when people will be gathering nearby the polling stations, however peaceful such gatherings may be. This provision of the ministerial ordinance not only lacks any basis in the law, it directly contradicts the freedom of assembly enshrined by the Constitution and the international human rights law.

We call on the Minister of the Interior to immediately revise his Ordinance and to repeal the STD Director’s involvement in the “territorial task forces” and the police force’s power to take so-called “preventive measures” against the voters peacefully assembled nearby their polling stations.