A man was threatened with ‘being sodomised with a Champagne bottle or an enema tube’ while in police custody in Georgia.
Rezo Kiknadze was detained in the capital, Tbilisi, during the early days of demonstrations against the Georgian Dream government’s suspension of its EU membership bid.
The 27-year-old is among the score of protesters who recount episodes of inhumane treatment and violent threats during arrests.
At a court hearing last week, he revealed how officers threatened to bury him alive to pressure him to give false testimony.
Kiknadze said: ‘Those standing by the [police] car window started speaking loudly so I could hear, “The tractor is already here, digging the pit, and if he doesn’t write it, let’s bury him alive”.
‘Then one of them turned to me – or rather, leaned into the car – and said, “Hey boy, write what they are telling you, or else, this is what awaits you”.’
Kiknadze was taken to the Ortachala district of Tbilisi where he was also allegedly threatened with sexual violence, OC Media reported.
He said: ‘One of them said “let’s bring him downstairs and put him on an enema tube or on a Champagne bottle”.
‘Another officer replied, “he might soil himself, it is a dirty job, so let’s put on gloves” .’
Kiknadze has been charged with participating in group violence, which carries a penalty of four to six years in prison.
He was detained while returning home from a clinic appointment by metro.
The protester told the court that two men dressed in all black stopped him inside the metro station before handcuffing him, putting him in a car, and then driving him to Lisi Lake in the northwest of Tbilisi.
This is where the officers abused him and pressured him into giving false testimony and speaking against opposition politicians in Georgia.
Protests have engulfed Georgia since last November when prime minister Irakli Kobakhidze, chairman of the populist Dream Party, announced the decision to suspend talks aimed at joining the European Union until 2028.
This came after the European Parliament rejected the results of Georgia’s October 26 parliamentary elections.
He accused them and ‘some European leaders’ of ‘blackmail’.
Since then, there have been protests every day – and the numbers of those arrested oscillate from a few hundred to thousands.
NGO, Civil Georgia, warned that people have been exposed to systematic repression – carried out both by official state bodies and by government thugs, who attack activists not only during the violent dispersal of rallies, but also during the day, in their homes and offices.
It said that at least 11 members of the opposition have been beaten this year, so far. There are also multiple reports of attacks on activists,
The Public Defender reports that at least 85% of those detained from November 28 to December 6 last year were physically abused.
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