There is a very high probability that illegal listening and collection of information about personal life are taking place - the facts also show that this information is not only collected, but used by state agencies to persecute or pressure people, - Public Defender Nino Lomjaria told reporters, answering the question about the report that "materials about the personal life of the clergy were leaked from the State Security Service."

According to Lomjaria, the listenings are dangerous not only before the elections, but in general, and should be stopped.

"In general, the fact that the security service has the ability and there is no control mechanism to protect ourselves from their illegal interference in our private life is a fact and the Public Defender speaks about it. We also have appealed the current mechanism of listenings in the Constitutional Court due to the lack of proper control. There have been numerous cases, including media reports, of interference in the private lives of school teachers or principals.

Even though this fact has not yet been verified and clarified, however, the combination of these facts and the information that the Public Defender obtains as a result of investigating the cases really gives us grounds to say that there is a very high probability that there are illegal listenings and information about personal life are collected. Not just during pre-election period, it is generally an extremely dangerous practice and such a thing cannot happen in democracies. This is an extremely gross violation of human rights and gross interference with a person’s private life. There needs to be a response to this. Such practices should be stopped.

We have also had cases with the teachers when they approached us and then we found a violation where presumably, this or that person or their family member was an activist or supporter of a particular opposition party and was therefore not appointed or dismissed. Therefore, the facts show that this information is not only collected, but also used by government agencies in public services or other budget organizations to persecute or pressure people", - Lomjaria said.

At the same time, Nino Lomjaria assessed the pre-election environment and answered the question regarding the voter lists. As Lomjaria noted, voter lists are a weak point of the Georgian elections. According to her, at this stage the ombudsman's office is working on "unprecedented facts of pressure."

"We do not receive information about the voter lists, but it will be interesting to see. This has always been one of the weak points of the Georgian elections, but at this stage what we are working on is the unprecedented facts of pressure, which is even more frequent than in previous elections, the pressure on those connected with political opponents, which manifests itself in dismissal and coercion of people to withdraw their candidacies", - Lomjaria said.

source: IPN