On July 12, 2023, head of a regional divison of the human rights protection and investigation quality monitoring department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, Goga Razmadze published Facebook post in which he talks about discriminatory and humiliating treatment toward him.

In his public post, Goga Razmadze mentions that after the appointment of the deputy minister, Aleksandre Darakhvelidze as the curator of his department, they started to control his public posts and demanded to delete his Facebook posts regarding human right violations.

According to Goga Razmadze’s Facebook post, he was summoned to the General Inspectorate of MIA, where his interview with the deputy head of the General Inspectorate lasted for 3 hours. Goga Razmadze says that during the entire interview, he was humiliated and degraded, and the human rights department was also smeared. Furthermore, he was coerced to write an explanation (leave the job on the basis of a personal application), otherwise he was threatened to be "fired."

Goga Razmadze mentions that his interviews was being conducted under General Inspectorate’s audit. This inspection under audit started spontaneously – department’s inspection was not a part of 2023 audit action plan. As Goga Razmadze states "there is no doubt that the aim of this audit is to start reorganization to get rid of 'unwanted' employees."

IDFI supports Goga Razmadze and hopes that the Ministry will not use artificial and unlawful ground for his dismissal from the work.  Also, the facts described in Goga Razmadze’s statement are sufficiently concrete to start effective and timely examination of this issue. Furthermore, some of these facts contain elements of a crime.

Based on all of the above, we call on the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia to ensure the effective use of freedom of expression by its employees, to eliminate and disallow discrimination on this basis, and to stop any process that might be aimed at pressuring employees for their expressed opinions. Also, we call on the Minister to make explanations regarding the accusations against the Deputy Minister and the General Inspectorate.

We call on the Special Investigative Service to initiate an investigation on the facts described by Goga Razmadze that contain signs of a crime.

We call on the Public Defender to examine Goga razmadze’s issue in a timely manner and effectively use his mandate to protect Goga Razmadze’s rights.