On 6th September staff at EUMM Field Office Zugdidi met with a Georgian NGO.
The Human Security team of monitors met with Ms Tea Maisuradze and Ms Tamar Vashakidze representatives of “Coalition for Justice” (CfJ), a Tbilisi-based NGO that was founded on 15 January 2010.CfJ is focussing on the right of return of IDPs to South Ossetia and Abkhazia and the recognition of their property rights as well as the overall Human Rights situation in Abkhazia with a focus on the Gali region.
CfJ is regularly meeting other NGOs and international organisations in the vicinity of the Administrative Boundary Line (ABL) to exchange information. CfJ will have a short presentation at the forthcoming annual OSCE / ODIHR Human Dimension Implementation meeting which will take place at the end of September 2012 in Warsaw, and for this reason they are preparing themselves to update their knowledge about the current Human Rights situation. CfJ highlighted the need to have an international organisation, like the EUMM, present in Abkhazia and South Ossetia to monitor the Human Rights situation there.
The CfJ representatives appreciated the EUMM commitments and were very satisfied with the information they gathered about the EUMM activities along the ABL. The importance of the Hot Line with the de-facto Abkhazian authorities and the Russian Border Guards was noted and its role in helping to defuse critical moments or to prevent an escalation in tension among the parties was recognized.
