Imereti. The Education Development and Employment Center (EDEC) published the "Textbook about Volunteering" within the Georgian Civil Society Development Initiative project. The textbook is intended for a wide audience, including young people, teachers, civil society organizations, the private sector, and the people who want to learn more about volunteering. Read more…  Source: Jobs.ge

Ajara. Transparency International Georgia published problems and outcomes of 2019-2020 activities of committees of concerned citizens in Ajara.  By the document, - Paving internal roads is vitally important for the high-mountain settlements of Adjara, fixing the drinking and irrigation water systems in the villages is equally important, Unlike the school infrastructure, the rehabilitation of kindergartens falls fully within the competence of local municipalities, correspondingly, considering modest resources, it was not possible to conduct rehabilitation works in many kindergartens, etc…  Read more…   Source: The web-page of the organization

Tbilisi. Public Defender’s Council of Religions published a statement about the latest developments in Georgia. “We, members of the Council of Religions of the Public Defender of Georgia, express our concern over the latest developments in Georgia. Insult and discrimination on religious grounds against people or religious communities, as well as manifestations of persecution, are disturbing”, - is mentioned in the statement, - “We, the religious organizations and members of the Council of Religions call on the authorities to Completely eliminating the offense committed on religious grounds in the village of Buknari; Unconditionally ensure the right of every person to have a place of worship, to pray in his/her temple or mosque and to follow religious rules, and ensure the safety of participation in religious life; Have a clear, unambiguous, anti-discrimination and state approach to xenophobia, hate speech and manifestations of anti-Semitism, try to establish the culture of tolerance”. Read more…  Source: The web-page of the organization

Tbilisi. TI Georgia has studied the issues of parliamentary election campaign finances from September 1 to November 17, 2020. In addition, it analyzed the donations received by political parties in more depth and reviewed the trends highlighted in this regard since January 1, 2020.  By the organization, out of nine election subjects that received at least 1% of the votes, one subject (Girchi) did not submit the completed financial statements to the SAO. Therefore, the findings of the report are mainly based on the analysis of the financial declarations submitted by 8 election subjects.  Read more…  Source: The web-page of the organization

Tbilisi. Civil society organizations released a special statement on the restriction of freedom of religion and a discriminatory state policy. “We, organizations representing the social platform “No to Phobia!” and the “Coalition for Equality”, consider that in recent months the situation in terms of protection of freedom of religion and belief has deteriorated sharply in Georgia. The state breaches principles of secularism and equality, violates rights of non-dominant religious groups and demonstrates unequal treatment of people of different religious faiths”, - is noted in the statement, - “in this regard, religious intolerance and violation of equality, shown against Muslim citizens in the village of Buknari in Chokhatauri Municipality, as well as a discriminatory policy of authorities, applied during the celebration of holidays by religious associations in pandemic conditions, and ignorance of anti-Semitic rhetoric, demonstrated by high hierarchs of the Orthodox Church during last period of time, are particularly alarming”. Read more… Source: osgf.ge

The web portal CsoGeorgia.org releases a weekly newsletter of grants competition, contests, vacancies, fellowships and tenders for civil society organizations and for any interested person. Newsletter...

Tbilisi. Human Rights Center evaluates activities of a new department of the Prosecutor’s Office . The Human Rights Center has published an analytical document: “Vague perspectives on restoring justice – Evaluation of activities of a department on the investigation of the crime committed in the process of legal proceeding at the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia”. The document of the Human Rights Center contains a review of cases of former political prisoners and other affected, which are part of case management of the organization and on which the new department of the Prosecutor’s Office, in turn, has been working for years: so-called Kintsvisi case, the case of Vakhtang Maisaia, the case of Davit Adeishvili and others. Read more… Source: The website of the organization

Tbilisi. The Human Rights Education and Monitoring Center (EMC) responds to the religious controversy, occurred in the village of Buknari, and calls on the state to de-escalate the conflict and to take effective steps aiming at ensuring unwavering protection of human rights.   “The analysis of these conflicts shows that the state did not provide a proper legal response to any of the cases, which fact, in general, resulted in encouraging impunity and turning it into a rule. Furthermore, in some cases, police representatives themselves were directly involved in large-scale violent actions organized against local Muslim communities”, - is stated on the website of the organization. Read more… Source: emc.org.ge

Tbilisi. The Public Defender of Georgia is responding to the events developed around the preaching of Ioane Gamrekeli, Metropolitan of Kutaisi and Gaenati Diocese of the Georgian Orthodox Church, and Ilia Karkadze, Deacon of the Kutaisi-Gaenati Diocese, which creates the risk of strengthening anti-Semitism in the country. According to the Public Defender, the spread of anti-Semitic views in the country threatens the equality of the ethnic Jewish people and, at the same time, shows that one of the most horrible crimes in the history of mankind - the Holocaust and its preconditions - have not been properly understood. Any manifestation of anti-Semitism is dangerous for every citizen, as well as for society as a whole. Read more… Source: ombudsman.ge

Tbilisi. Myth Detector publishes a blog post: How do different vaccines work and is any of them dangerous? The article is about disinformation, according to which the Pfizer vaccine is a technical virus and contains danger, while Russian (meaning Sputnik V) and Oxford (meaning AstraZeneca) vaccines are considered exemplary. As false information states, the Pfizer vaccine can alter DNA, egg, and sperm cells, which change reflects also on the fetus. “Published posts about the threat of the Pfizer vaccine and termination of the vaccination process in Greece contain disinformation: 1. All COVID-19 vaccines that are in use have passed all necessary stages of testing; 2. The European Commission and the European Medicines Agency have recommended using Moderna and Pfizer vaccines throughout Europe. 3. The principles of the impact of the Pfizer/Moderna vaccine, on the one hand, and the AstraZeneca/Sputnik V vaccine, on the other hand, are different, however, none of them contain an artificial virus. 4. Vaccines cannot cause changes in human DNA, sperm, and egg cells. 5. The vaccination process has not been terminated in Greece”, - is stated in the blog post. Read more… Source: mythdetector.ge

Germany is one of those friendly countries, which actively supported Georgia in the fight against COVID-19.  “Last year COVID-19 severely affected also Georgia. Therefore, Germany supported it in various ways. In particular, there were distributed protective clothes and food items to those in need, provided breathing aid devices to the Georgian side, allocated a soft loan and a grant to ensure social security of the unemployed, informally employed, and vulnerable part of the population during the pandemic. All these measures, small or large, are important in combating consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic”, - is stated in information released by the embassy. Read more… Source: The website of the organization

USAID is partnering with farmers across Georgia to strengthen their post-harvest management, the key to the country’s efforts to build a more modern and profitable agriculture sector.  Read more… Source: The page in the social network

Tbilisi. TDI responds to statements of the Patriarchate of Georgia and Kutaisi-Gaenati Eparchy about the anti-Semitic sermon of the Orthodox clergy. „The statement reads, that Archpriest Ilia Karkadze's sermon of January 4, "represents completely groundless accusations against the Jewish people or its individual representatives. It is not based on the teachings of the Church and is inspired with the anti-Semitic pathos". As the Metropolitan notes, Archpriest Karkadze received a warning and he is sorry for what he has said“, - is mentioned in the document, - “We welcome the critical assessment of the anti-Semitic statements of Archpriest Ilia Karkadze by the Church and consider it as the first step forward. However, this response is insufficient to address the problem of anti-Semitism and intolerance within the Church. It was the December 20 sermon of Metropolitan Ioane Gamrekeli that created a ground for a new wave of anti-Semitism, which was followed by the statements of Archpriest Ilia Karkadze. Therefore, it is important from the side of Metropolitan to assess the problematic nature of his own sermon and to apologize for the anti-Semitic rhetoric”. Read more…  Source: The web-page of the organization

Tbilisi. The Public Defender of Georgia has addressed the Government of Georgia with a recommendation to eliminate discrimination against persons with disabilities who have reached the retirement age. “According to the recommendation, the part of the Government’s Decree (No 279) on Social Package, which prohibits the simultaneous enjoyment of a disability social package and an age pension and allows only one of them, is discriminatory. In view of all the above, the Public Defender of Georgia established direct discrimination on the ground of disability and called on the Prime Minister of Georgia to ensure that reaching the retirement age by a person with disabilities does not always exclude the possibility of receiving the social package and the -age pension at the same time”. Read more… Source: ombudsman.ge

Tbilisi. On December 21, 2020, the Public Defender of Georgia established indirect discrimination on the ground of sex, as a female victim of sexual violence had been twice examined by male experts at the Western Georgia Regional Forensics Department of Samkharauli Forensics Bureau due to absence of female experts. The applicant's interests were represented in the Public Defender's Office by the Women's Initiatives Supportive Group (WISG). “According to the Public Defender, even indirectly forcing a victim of sexual violence to be examined by an expert of the opposite sex is a gender-insensitive approach and it should be borne in mind that the above would not be desirable for most of the women who have experienced sexual violence. The applicant referred to the traumatic experience in her written explanations, highlighting her grave emotional state. Based on the above, the Public Defender addressed Levan Samkharauli Forensics Bureau (LEPL) with a recommendation to employ female experts in the Western Georgia Regional Forensics Department; take into account the different needs of persons to be examined in the future,” is noted in the statement. Read more… Source: ombudsman.ge

Tbilisi. “Covid 19: Civil Society Resilience and Sustainability” is a project funded by the European Union and Implemented by ERIM (formerly IREX Europe) and Human Rights House Tbilisi in Georgia. Within the project, Rights Georgia's lawyers provided free legal advice to more than 100 beneficiaries, as well as took legal actions to protect their interests in the police, in the courts, and the other administrative authorities. Read more… Source: The organization’s page in the social network

Tbilisi. According to Transparency International Georgia, changes, to be made to legislation on elections and political parties, do not meet democratic standards. “We consider that the major part of proposed changes to the rule of funding of parties is contrary to European standards of state funding of parties and, on illegitimate grounds, will heavily affect financial situation of opposition parties, which fact is going to have negative impact on political pluralism and a competitive political environment. At the same time, cancellation of election registration for an election subject due to participation of an unauthorized person in the election campaign is a disproportionately severe sanction and carries a great risk of using it for political purposes”, - is noted in the statement. Read more… Source: transparency.ge

Tbilisi. The Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) publishes an overview of the anti-crisis plan. The organization, with the support of the European Union (EU), implements the “Monitoring of COVID-19 related costs and protection of human rights during and after the state of emergency” project. “One of the main goals of the project is to monitor implementation of the anti-crisis plan of the Government of Georgia and effectiveness of measures taken within the framework of it. The present report contains an overview of the primary anti-crisis plan of Georgia in the circumstances of the pandemic and its implementation as of December 2020”, - is stated on the website of the organization. Read more… Source: idfi.ge

Tbilisi. On 30 November, the Government of Georgia (GoG) submitted to the Parliament the final version of the draft law On the 2021 State Budget which differs considerably from the version submitted on 5 November. The significant changes in the draft budget were caused by including in the budget the factors related to the coronavirus pandemic. Transparency International Georgia (TI Georgia) has prepared a brief evaluation and recommendations on the final draft budget. Read more… Source: transparency.ge

Tbilisi. According to information that the Human Rights Education and Monitoring Center (EMC) releases, in its decision of December 25 related to the case – “Giorgi Keburia v. the Parliament of Georgia”, the Constitutional Court has taken positions of the plaintiff into consideration in the majority of cases and declared unconstitutional those norms of the Criminal Procedure Code, which allow to pass a verdict of guilty on the basis of evidences obtained through operative information only. The Constitutional Court also defined that while assessing lawfulness of a search, performed due to urgent necessity, court has to take into account only circumstances prevailing at the time of the search and does not have to pay attention to the outcome of the search. Read more… Source: emc.org.ge

Tbilisi. Transparency International Georgia (TI Georgia) has begun systematic gathering of information on high-level alleged corruption related violations that have been revealed in recent years and left without adequate response.  “Our goal is to create a periodically updatable information resource that allows us to track these violations and observe the real scale of high-level corruption. In recent years, there has been revealed a high-level so-called “elite” corruption and improper response to it as one of the main challenges for Georgia in terms of corruption. Conclusions of local civil society, evaluations of international organizations, results of a number of global ratings and public opinion surveys, conducted in Georgia, indicate existence and severity of this problem”, - is stated on the website of the organization. Read more… Source: transparency.ge

Tbilisi. The Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) submitted comments concerning a bill on amnesty, initiated by Mikheil Sarjveladze, a member of the Parliament of Georgia, to the Committees on Human Rights and Legal Affairs. “In the circumstances of a strict drug policy over the years, the act of amnesty will have a positive impact on rehabilitation/re-socialization of people convicted of drug crimes. However, it is important to get the parliament start working on systemic changes in the field of drug policy in time, as well as arrange norms stipulated by an article on drug crimes of the Criminal Code”, - is stated on the website of the organization. Read more… Source: gyla.ge