Tbilisi City Court has granted prosecutors’ request of involuntary transfer of detained activist Nino Datashvili to a psychiatric facility for examination for twenty days, activists’ lawyers said on August 2, arguing the move is an attempt to discredit and stigmatize the detainee.
According to the lawyers from Partnership for Human Rights (PHR), a local human rights group, prosecutors seized on medical records of Datashvili, an activist and teacher detained on criminal charges of assaulting a public officer, which noted rising emotionality as a symptom accompanying a serious spinal condition.
The prosecution “requested to carry out court psychiatric expertise illegally and without a ground, which means that the prosecutors requested to determine the issue of sanity for Nino Datashvili without any criteria or grounds,” PHR Head Tamuna Gabodze told reporters on August 2.
Gabodze said that the court granted the request without allowing the activist to take part in the process, as she had no information about the proceedings. “The court stated that should Nino Datashvili object to the expertise, to use proportional measures of coercion, which means that the court issued a permission for Nino Datashvili’s involuntary transfer to a psychiatric facility,” the lawyer said.
According to Gabodze, the prosecution’s request is based on Datashvili’s 2019 medical records, submitted by the defense, which state that she suffers from a severe spinal condition, including intervertebral damage with hernia and radiculitis, with “emotional lability” noted as an accompanying symptom. But instead of considering the medical condition during the upcoming pre-trial hearing to assess the necessity of keeping the activist in custody, Gabodze said the prosecutors “illegally extended Nino’s imprisonment, this time in a psychiatric facility.”
The decision “aims to discredit and stigmatize Nino [Datashvili], because psychiatry is stigmatized in Georgia, and their goal is to ultimately push Nino Datashvili away from activism […] and brazenly, without any grounds, lock up a person who is fighting for her rights in a psychiatric facility,” the PHR head said.
Datashvili was arrested on July 20 and faces 4 to 7 years in jail on criminal charges of attacking an officer. The Interior Ministry based the charges on a June 9 episode when she was forcibly removed from court by several bailiffs. Video footage from the scene appears to show her frantically swinging her hands at a bailiff while being restrained and removed, though the nature or force of the contact is unclear from the video.
Her detention and charges are among cases that have drawn scrutiny and criticism for prosecutors applying disproportionate criminal charges to minor incidents, such as the case of journalist Mzia Amaghlobeli, whose verdict is expected in the coming days.
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