Human rights activists from various countries have called for an end to the persecution of Georgia's former ombudsman.
20 human rights organizations from 13 countries, including Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, called on the Georgian Dream party to stop pressuring former ombudsman Ucha Nanuashvili, who was summoned to the State Security Service after meeting with an expert from the OSCE Moscow Mechanism.
As reported by the Caucasian Knot, at the end of January 2026, the United Kingdom and 23 other OSCE countries initiated the creation of an expert mission in connection with the deteriorating human rights situation in Georgia. The mission's findings, which assessed human rights violations in the country since 2024, were published on March 12. The mission confirmed that the Georgian authorities are involved in torture, inhumane treatment, the use of chemical weapons, election fraud, unlawful arrests for political reasons, the introduction of repressive laws, and authoritarian actions against political opponents. The report contains factual inaccuracies and politically biased conclusions, which calls into question its objectivity, said Alexander Maisuradze, Permanent Representative of Georgia to the OSCE. The opposition believes that there are sufficient legal preconditions for the Hague Court to initiate an investigation.
Former Georgian Ombudsman and founder of the NGO "Center for Democratic Studies" Ucha Nanuashvili reported on March 17 that he had been summoned for questioning by the State Security Service (SSG) of Georgia.
According to Nanuashvili, security officials are interested in his communications with an expert of the OSCE Moscow Mechanism.
“An investigator from the State Security Service called me; I was summoned regarding communications with an expert of the OSCE Moscow Mechanism. It turns out that we, human rights activists, are prohibited from communicating with the OSCE expert? Apparently, they are very concerned about the Moscow Mechanism,” Nanuashvili wrote on his Facebook page*.
Nanuashvili refused to appear for questioning at the State Security Service, stating that he wanted to be interviewed in the presence of a magistrate judge, Interpressnews reported. This interview took place in the Tbilisi City Court on March 18 – Nanuashvili was questioned in a case of aiding a foreign power. After this procedure, the former ombudsman noted that he signed a non-disclosure agreement and cannot discuss the details, but called the interview absurd.
He emphasized that the very fact of the investigation violates the Georgian authorities' obligations to the OSCE: the organization's operational document "directly indicates the authorities' obligation to cooperate with the Moscow Mechanism and protect the rights of those who will communicate with experts in various forms."
"This organization or individual must be protected, and the authorities are prohibited from exerting any pressure on them, even summoning them, as happened today. It can be concluded that this is a serious violation of OSCE requirements, to which the Georgian authorities must respond. I did not coordinate any actions; I answered questions, assisted the expert; this was my duty as a citizen, as a human rights defender," Sputnik Georgia quoted Nanuashvili as saying.
On March 19, an association of 20 human rights organizations strongly condemned the pressure exerted by the Georgian authorities on Ucha Nanuashvili.
“The persecution of Ucha Nanuashvili began immediately after the publication of an OSCE report in March 2026, which detailed human rights violations and democratic retreats in Georgia over the past two years. The Georgian State Security Service summoned the expert for questioning in connection with his participation in the preparation of the OSCE report, which the human rights community calls a clear intimidation tactic,” stated the Helsinki Citizens' Assembly Office in Vanadzor, Armenia, which joined the statement.
An investigation has been launched against Nanuashvili under Article 319 of the Georgian Criminal Code – for assisting foreign organizations in “hostile activities.”
“The organizations that signed the appeal call on the Kobakhidze government and the ruling party to immediately cease persecuting the experts and urge the authorities to carefully consider the report’s recommendations rather than reinforce its negative conclusions with further repression,” the human rights organization’s website notes.
The authors of the appeal note that the government’s actions to pressure Ucha Nanuashvili “can be included in future reports on the topic of democratic backsliding in Georgia.” The statement was signed by, among others, the Center for Participation and Development (Georgia), the Vanadzor Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly and Defense of Rights Without Borders (Armenia), the Human Rights Center of Azerbaijan and the Institute for Freedom and Safety of Journalists (Azerbaijan), and 15 other human rights organizations from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, the United States, Norway, Poland, Italy, Serbia, Belarus, and Russia.