By RIA Novosti,
TBILISI : A Georgian nongovernmental organization has sent hundreds of lawsuits to the European Court of Human Rights over Russia’s actions in the August war over South Ossetia, a spokesman for the organization said on Friday.
The 42nd Article of the Constitution group has sent 391 claims to the court in Strasbourg on behalf of Georgian citizens who suffered during the five-day conflict between Russia and Georgia in August 2008.
“All of the claims are against the Russian government because that country violated a large number of points in the European Convention,” the spokesman said. “In particular, [the claims] are on human rights violations, torture and inhuman treatment, enslavement and forced labor, violations on the right to freedom and integrity, respect for personal and family life, rights on effective and just defense, and others.”
The NGO has requested the court speed up the process in the cases in the deaths of two journalists, Giorgia Chikhladze and Alexander Klimchuk. Both journalists were killed in the republic’s capital of Tskhinvali during the armed conflict.
Chikhladze was employed in Moscow by Russia’s version of Newsweek and Klimchuk was a photographer for Russia’s state news agencies ITAR-TASS and RIA Novosti.
Russia recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another Georgian separatist republic, as independent states on August 26 last year, two weeks after the end of the conflict, which was sparked by a Georgian military attack on South Ossetia.