The European Court of Human Rights has issued a ruling in the fourth interstate case "Georgia v. Russia" concerning the "bordering" of administrative boundaries after the 2008 conflict, UNN reports with reference to Novosti Georgia.
Details
The Court unanimously ruled that there had been violations of Articles 2 (right to life), 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), 5, §1 (right to liberty and security) and 8 (right to respect for private and family life), 1 (protection of property), 2 (right to education), Protocol No. 1 and Article 2 of Protocol No. 4 (freedom of movement) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Excerpt from the press release of the Strasbourg Court:
The armed conflict between Georgia and Russia in August 2008 led to a process that began in 2009 and is known as "borderization," the blocking of free crossing of administrative borders between the territory controlled by Georgia and the Russian-backed breakaway Georgian regions. Abkhazia and South Ossetia (Tskhinvali region - ed.).
The situation has been called "one of the most painful legacies of the Georgian-Russian conflict of August 2008". The Georgian government has claimed, in particular, that people have been killed while trying to enter or leave Abkhazia or South Ossetia, and others have been arrested, detained and/or ill-treated for "illegally crossing" administrative boundaries. People have been deprived of land they used for farming, families have been separated, and children have been forced to choose between learning in Russian or making long and dangerous trips to school to reach Georgian-controlled territory.
The court found that it had sufficient evidence, including lists of victims, to conclude that the incidents were not isolated, but were sufficiently numerous and interconnected to constitute a pattern or system of violations. Moreover, the apparent lack of effective investigation of the incidents proves that the Russian authorities officially tolerated this practice.