Europe Court Condemns Russia for Mass Expulsions of Georgians
The European Court of Human Rights condemned Russia on Thursday over the mass deportation of Georgian citizens in 2006, saying it violated a string of rights conventions.
Russia's arrest, detention and collective expulsions of several thousand Georgians sharply raised tensions between the two countries, which fought a brief war in 2008.
The Strasbourg-based court's ruling in a case filed by Georgia in 2007 described the practice as "arbitrary".
The Georgian government said more than 4,600 expulsion orders were issued by Russia from September 2006 to January 2007, and that over 2,300 were detained and forcibly expelled.
"The court found that in the autumn of 2006, a coordinated policy of arresting, detaining and expelling Georgian nationals had been followed by the Russian authorities," which the court said was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Source: Agence France Presse
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