The Georgian organization Sapari has been providing legal, psychological, and social assistance to women in Georgia for 24 years.
Each year, our lawyers provide free legal consultations to over a thousand women, supporting them in interactions with investigative authorities and in court.
On June 17, the Ivanishvili–Kuprashvili bureau began enforcing unconstitutional, Russian-style laws through Murusidze’s court. They are demanding — without any legal grounds — that we, as human rights defenders, hand over the personal information of women and child victims of violence who are under our protection. Specifically, they are asking for personal identification numbers, full names, photographs, financial and banking data, and health-related information of those who have trusted us and sought our support.
Sapari has no intention of betraying the trust of those we protect — even if it leads to our persecution or arrest.
Together with other civil society organizations, we will pursue all legal avenues against these unlawful orders. To us, their goal is clear: Ivanishvili is attempting to dismantle free civil society in Georgia, just as the Bolsheviks did in the 1920s, and as the Putin and Lukashenko regimes have done in the past decade.
Once again, we declare:
We will not live under Russian-style laws.
We will not accept the sabotage of Georgia’s European future.
And we will continue to fight to defend the rights of the Georgian people.