The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association, and Transparency International Georgia have studied and published information about numerous incidents of political pressure on citizens of Georgia as part of the monitoring of the pre-election environment of the 2012 elections. One of the most common types of such incidents involves dismissals from the public sector on political grounds.

Out of the cases that we recorded, dismissals of citizens on allegedly political grounds most frequently took place in the agencies under the Ministries of Education and Science, of Culture and Monument Protection, of Internal Affairs, and of Labor, Health and Social Affairs, in local self-government bodies and structures subordinated to them, and in legal entities of public law.

We, non-governmental organizations, are requesting the heads of the relevant ministries and local self-government bodies to immediately launch intra-agency inquiries into the circumstances of the allegedly politically motivated dismissals, in order to restore the rights of the dismissed individuals and to identify the individuals responsible for the unlawful decisions in a timely manner.

In our turn, we express readiness to cooperate with you in connection with the said issues and to provide you with the information at our disposal about the circumstances of the cases of individuals dismissed on political grounds.