Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's government has had a checkered human rights record since it came to power after the 2003 Rose Revolution. The international community has welcomed the steps taken by the new Georgian leaders to refine the legal mechanisms needed to combat rights abuses. But it also blames the government for failing to ensure those mechanisms are properly implemented. Other critics say they are increasingly concerned by the "culture of impunity" they say continues to prevail among law enforcement officers. They blame this feeling of impunity for many rights abuses, including torture.
prisons and pretrial detention centers."
 
They also urge Georgian authorities to promptly investigate all allegations of torture and "apply a policy of zero tolerance to impunity."
 
Accusations From Elsewhere
 
The Council of Europe is not alone in pointing to the persistence of torture in Georgia.
 
Ana Dolidze chairs Georgia's Young Lawyers Association, or GYLA, a Tbilisi-based nongovernmental group that brings together legal professionals seeking to making national legislation more protective of human rights and democracy.
 
She tells RFE/RL her organization recently organized a series of roundtable discussions to assess progress made this year in the field of human rights. The result, she says, is not encouraging.
 
"Our conclusion is that, unfortunately, torture and violence -- be it at the hands of special police forces or regular police forces -- remains widespread," Dolidze said. "Unfortunately also, these human rights violations are not properly and actively investigated by the prosecutor-general's office."
 
Dolidze says the few investigations that have been launched into alleged cases of torture represent an improvement over to the previous administration of President Eduard Shevardnadze. However, she said the progress was insignificant in relation to the massive efforts still made to cover up police violence.
 
Dolidze's assessment matches findings in a report released last month by Amnesty International (AI). In it, the London-based human rights watchdog says that, two years into President Mikheil Saakashvili's administration, torture and ill-treatment remain a major concern.
 
Shocks, Burns, Threats
 
The report says in order to coerce confessions from suspects, Georgian police use not only beating and kicking, but "electric shocks; putting plastic bags over the head of a detainee; suspending a detainee from a pole between two tables; cigarette and candle burns; placing the barrel of a gun in a detainee's mouth threatening to shoot; blindfolding with adhesive tape; hitting a detainee's ear with open palms; threats to beat the detainee's family; [and] gagging the detainee with a piece of cloth so [that he] cannot shout."
 
AI South Caucasus researcher Anna Sunder-Plasmann tells RFE/RL that alleged torture and ill-treatment usually occurs during arrests. But it can take place at other times as well.
 
"We've also received cases of people who alleged to have been tortured or ill-treated after their arrest -- for example, on their way to the police station, or inside the Interior Ministry building," she said. "There were [even] allegations from one [man] who said he was ill-treated in the court, in front of the judge."
 
Sunder-Plasmann says victims of such abuse include women, children, and refugees from Chechnya.