After Georgia’s contested election, in which the Georgian Dream Party claimed victory, concerns about the deteriorating conditions for LGBTQI+ individuals will only grow.
In the run up to the elections, the Georgian Dream Party ran a campaign that was explicitly anti-LGBTQI+. The party sought to use homophobia to gain political advantage, notably through the introduction of repressive new legislation that severely restricts rights of LGBTQI+ individuals.
Georgian Dream Party speaker Shalva Papuashvili, who is the Georgian Parliament‘s Speaker, signed the law on 3rd Oct. after the Georgian President refused to.
Concerns have grown in the UK over the inclusion Georgia on the list’safe’ nations, where all claims for protection and human right will be automatically declared inadmissible, except in exceptional circumstances. The previous Conservative government included Georgia and India on its list of’safe’ countries in April 2024 despite widespread evidence that rights violations were occurring against minorities in both nations. This issue was raised by Lords when scrutinizing the regulations.
Rainbow Migration’s Policy and Public Affairs Manager, Minesh Parekh said that there is mounting evidence that LGBTQI+ people in Georgia are in danger. The situation has only gotten worse in recent months. We urge the new Georgian government to remove Georgia off the list of “safe” countries to which it can send people back to and to show the world that they will not tolerate anti LGBT hate.
In November 2023, UK government announced draft regulations to add Georgia, along with India, to the list as ‘Safe States’, under section 80AA (as amended by Section 59 of Illegal Immigration Act 2023). The Country Policy and Information Note on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression in Georgia V1.0, published in December 2023, was followed by the addition of Georgia, along with India, to the list countries where protection and human right claims are automatically declared inadmissible in all but exceptional cases, on April 17th 2024. This change was made by a statutory act. The new statutory act could affect claims made before or after the date section 6 of the Illegal Migration Act comes into effect and claims made after section 59.
The UK House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and civil society organizations in UK and abroad have expressed grave concern over the addition of Georgia on the’safe state’ lists. They highlight that it increases the risk of individuals with well-founded complaints being sent back to ill treatment or persecution.
A recent commentary by Asylos, Rainbow Migration and a research report by Asylos on the situation of LGBTQI+ in Georgia reveals that it is incoherent to consider Georgia as a “safe” state within the international protection contents, highlighting the fact that the Home Office’s Country Policy and information Note:
* Failed fully to acknowledge the normalized role that hostile rhetoric by public official encourages societal violence against LGBTQI+ people. This is not just ‘occasionally,’ or in the contexts of Pride events but in everyday life.
* Minimized information that points to the existence and entrenched negative attitudes in society towards LGBTQI+ people.
* Failed to take into account information that showed repeated failures by the Georgian authorities to protect LGBTQI+ people and hold perpetrators accountable
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