Following Georgia’s contested elections, from which the Georgian Dream party claimed victory, concerns will only deepen over the deteriorating situation for LGBTQI+ people in the country, Rainbow Migration representatives stated this week.
“In the run-up to the election, the Georgian Dream party ran an explicitly anti-LGBTQI+ campaign that sought to instrumentalize homophobia for political gain, particularly through the introduction of new repressive legislation that severely restricts the rights of LGBTQI+ people,” they write.
The legislative package on the Protection of Family Values and Minors was adopted by the Georgian parliament on 17th September, and signed into law by the Georgian parliament’s speaker Shalva Papuashvili of the Georgian Dream party on 3rd October, after Georgia’s President refused to do so.
In the UK, concerns have been mounting over the inclusion of Georgia on the list of ‘safe’ countries, from where protection and human rights claims will be declared automatically inadmissible in all but exceptional circumstances. The previous Conservative government added Georgia and India to its ‘safe’ states list in April 2024, despite widespread evidence of rights violations against minorities in both countries, an issue raised by Lords during scrutiny on the regulations.
“There’s mounting evidence of the danger that LGBTQI+ people face in Georgia, and the situation has only worsened in recent months,” said Minesh Parekh, Policy and Public Affairs Manager for Rainbow Migration. ‘We urge the new government to remove Georgia from the list of ‘safe’ countries where it can return people to, and to signal to the world that it will not tolerate anti-LGBT hate.”
In November 2023, the UK government announced that draft regulations were being laid to add Georgia – along with India – to the list of ‘Safe States’ under section 80AA of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (as amended by section 59 of the Illegal Migration Act 2023). In December 2023, the Country Policy and Information Note: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression, Georgia V1.0 was published, and on 17th April 2024, Georgia – along with India – was added to the list of countries from where protection and human rights claims will be declared automatically inadmissible, in all but exceptional circumstances. This change was made through statutory instrument; the new statutory instrument could impact claims made on or after the date that section 6 of the Illegal Migration Act (IMA) comes into force and before section 59 is in force, as well as those claims made after section 59 of the IMA is fully in force.
The UK House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, as well as civil society organizations in the UK and internationally, have expressed serious concern at the addition of Georgia to ‘safe states’ lists, highlighting that it raises the risk that individuals with well-founded claims may be sent back to ill-treatment or persecution.
A recent commentary issued by Asylos and Rainbow Migration, alongside research report by Asylos covering the situation of LGBTQI+ people in Georgia, reveals the incoherence of considering Georgia to be a ‘safe’ state within the international protection content, highlighting that the Home Office’s Country Policy and Information Note:
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Failed to fully acknowledge the normalized role of hostile rhetoric by public officials in encouraging societal violence towards LGBTQI+ people, not only ‘occasionally’ or in the context of Pride events, but in everyday life.
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Minimized information pointing to the existence of entrenched negative societal attitudes and violence towards LGBTQI+ people.
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Failed to fully take account of information demonstrating repeated serious failures in the Georgian authorities’ ability to protect LGBTQI+ persons and hold perpetrators of violence to account
