Torture Vans in Georgia -- The Visual Evidence

Documenting the crimes of a regime that is dismantling the country's constitutional order

(to the subscribers, apologies for the radio silence — will resume more regular writing on this channel. This is from a while back, but still worth covering.)

If you follow Georgia, you have heard about the beatings in especially designated mini-vans -- not in the heat of an arrest or maybe subduing, but afterwards, in a deliberate & systematic practice. Here now there is clear evidence of this practice, as it happened on February 2, 2025, at Tbilisi Mall. This is important to record in some detail, as it highlights criminal intent to organize the hurting of citizens.

Here you see just after arrest, as people are put into the van.

On next video, you need to look closely -- you will see the man in the van thumping someone, it's a clear hitting motion. It even seems you can hear it. Almost all of these riot police wear tactical gloves, i.e. ones with hardened knuckles. In this context, these gloves are not for protection, but to inflict injury.

This is about 60 seconds later, at 19:08, you see six (!) men leaving the van, after they have been busy inside -- and if you look closely, you see the detainee in green anorak still holding his hands up, in a protective motion. To anyone looking, it's clear what has been happening here: subdued detainees, sitting, beaten by multiple men. This fits exactly with the reports.

It seems we may have had more beatings at 19:13, again fitting with reports of multiple rounds of beatings.

The full clip shows how police are trying to keep the door diligently closed, there is something to hide. The guy visible on the left from the one with green anorak seems crumpled up.

Here is the number plate, too -- UD-117-DU, a typical service number plate.

Arrests sometimes can get rough. Here, that is not the issue: Georgian Dream authorities established an organized, deliberate system, with unmarked bus, no windows, keeping door closed to hide, multiple police going in, several times with intent & purpose, to hurt and injure citizens.

Several days after I summarized this video, the account became public of Badri Grigalashvili, a young activist, who is pictured in the video. Below his account, which in turn is corroborated by the video.

(Interestingly, there are small inconsistencies. He describes four policemen who came for beatings, when the video shows it was six. As these things often go, the small inconsistenties underline that this is a plausible account.)

Badri Grigalashvili’s Facebook Post

Here's a machine translation of Badri’s post:

"A 16-year-old boy, not visible in the footage, was sitting next to me.

We were standing on an elevated slope, on all four sides of the mall. We weren't blocking the road, not even the sidewalk. Meanwhile, the entire road was already filled with Khareba's [Zviad Kharazisvhili, notoriously violent police chief] people. They threatened us, demanding we leave the elevated area as well. But I remember several masked individuals moving towards a young girl, and I froze. The threats I heard directed at her were so awful that I couldn't run. While I was trying to figure out how to help, several masked people grabbed me, threw me onto the road, and forced me through a gauntlet of beatings all the way to a minibus. Khareba himself watched this from a few meters away. Finally, they shoved me into the minibus. Inside, I found the underage boy, and then the others followed (we met each other for the first time there. They're incredibly courageous people, the kind who inspire you to fight). Four masked individuals joined us, and then the doors were closed.

As soon as the doors closed, they physically assaulted us for about a minute. They forcibly took our phones and other personal belongings, and then they started putting zip ties on our wrists. They ran out of zip ties for the boys, but they put them on me, tightening them so much that my hands almost lost all circulation before the patrol police removed them. The officers had to cut the zip ties with a knife, and that's when I could finally breathe. This happened about 15 minutes after the arrest.

I was mentally prepared for something like this, I had imagined the kind of pain and humiliation I would have to endure. But one of the masked men radiated a level of hatred and aggression that is indescribable. When he was beating one of the detainees and cursing at his mother, the boy pleaded, 'Don't curse at my mother – she's dead. You can hit me more.' The masked man actually stopped cursing and increased the intensity of the beating. He clearly understood what the boy had said. People like that shouldn't be in special forces or any government service, they shouldn't even be out in public. If they had been given the chance, they would have killed us all right then and there.

Then the door opened again. Another masked man yelled at them, 'There are too many cameras, stop and get out!' So they left, cursing and disappointed they couldn't hit us more. After that, the minibus started moving, they handed us over to the patrol police, and the torture ended.

This happened in the minibus. The 16-year-old boy (I couldn't remember his name) was released shortly after. The rest of us spent 48 hours in detention and were fined 2,400 lari each in court.

This is the kind of justice that has become established in our country: first, they arrest you without reason, then they humiliate and torture you, lock you up, and finally, like a cherry on top, you're fined.

I was debating whether or not to write these details, as people are already terrified. But so much has happened, so much has been written, and so much we have seen, I might as well add this too – maybe at least one member of the ruling party will read it when they ask, 'Why are these young people wandering the streets?'

The struggle continues – we will not retreat for a single moment until we free all innocent prisoners. I'm certain of this, both for myself and for the boys.

P.S. Even the patrol police officers can't hide their anger towards Khareba's unit in their conversations. They are the ones who have to justify their sadism."

You can follow Badri on Facebook here.

Ongoing Assault and Accountability

Georgian Dream is copying the strategy of other authoritarians, to massively “flood the zone”, to distract and almost normalize their transgressions. One reason to write this post is to precisely document in a single place what they really are up to, next to all the other evidence that is out there.

This is all the more important since the accomplices of the Georgian Dream (including the OSCE functionary Roberto Montella and also, see above, German law professors — including Heiner Alwart (Jena), Martin Heger (Berlin), Bernhard Heinrich (Tübingen) — who still [!!!] serve on the board of a journal supposedly dedicated to criminal law, with some of the people overseeing this assault) try to obscure what is really going on. This needs to stop.

If you want to find ways to engage, comment below or drop me a line.