ECHR: Police Abuse in Raid on LGBT Office in Tbilisi Breached Applicants’ Dignity
Today, the European Court of Human Rights has delivered a verdict on the case Aghdgomelashvili and Japaridze v. Georgia about a raid on LGBT office in Tbilisi.
The case Aghdgomelashvili and Japaridze v. Georgia (application no. 7224/11) concerned a police raid on the office of a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender organization in Tbilisi. The applicants, who worked at the organization, complained that the police had insulted and threatened them, and put them through humiliating strip-searches.
In today’s Chamber judgment1 in the case the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been violations of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights taken in conjunction with Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) as concerned the police abuse during the raid and the related investigation.
The Court found that the State had been responsible for the homophobic and/or transphobic police abuse that had been inflicted on the applicants and the absence of an effective investigation into the officers’ grossly inappropriate behavior.
Of particular concern for the Court was the fact that neither the police nor the Government had given reasons for the strip-searches, leading it to conclude that their sole purpose had been to embarrass and punish the applicants for their association with the LGBT community.
The Court concluded that Georgia was to pay each applicant 2,000 euros (EUR) in respect of nonpecuniary damage.
The applicants, Ekaterine Aghdgomelashvili and Tinatin Japaridze, are Georgian nationals who were born in 1969 and 1979 respectively and live in Tbilisi.
On 15 December 2009 around 17 police officers in civilian clothing rushed into the office of the LGBT non-governmental organization, the Inclusive Foundation, where preparations were being made for an art exhibition.
The officers announced that they were there to conduct a search, without showing a search warrant or any other judicial order. The applicants, who both worked for the NGO, and their colleagues submit that the police, on realizing that they were on the premises of an LGBT organization, became aggressive. One of the officers forcibly seized the first applicant’s mobile phone, while another said that he wished he could burn the place down.
The officers insulted the women present, calling them “sick”, “perverts” and “dykes”, and threatened to reveal their sexual orientation to the public. Female officers later proceeded to strip-search nearly all of the women present, including the applicants. No records of the strip-searches were drawn up, and the women concerned all felt that the measure had been carried out to humiliate them as the officers did not search the clothes they were told to take off.
The applicants’ criminal complaint filed in January 2010 for police abuse is still ongoing. There has been no reply to the applicants’ requests that they be granted victim status or that the investigating authorities examine the allegedly discriminatory aspects of the police’s behavior during the raid.