Europe and Central Asia Summary of Amnesty International’s Concerns in the Region, January-June 2007 that officers of the special police unit have not been required to wear identification badges, given that this unit has been implicated in numerous cases in using excessive force and ill-treatment when conducting arrests. AI believes that the anonymity of police officers increases the risk of torture or other ill-treatment and perpetuates impunity. Name tags and/or visible identification numbers are important safeguards against torture or other illtreatment and are a crucial element in governments’ efforts to end impunity for torture and ill-treatment. European Court of Human Rights rules on October 1999 attack on Jehovah’s Witnesses (update to AI Indexes: EUR 01/004/2000 and EUR 01/002/2005) On 3 May the European Court of Human Rights issued a ruling in the case entitled 97 Members of the Gldani Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses & 4 Others v. Georgia. The ruling related to the 17 October 1999 attack on a religious gathering of several dozen Jehovah’s Witnesses by some 200 followers of defrocked Georgian Orthodox priest, Father Basil Mkalavishvili. Sixteen worshippers reportedly needed hospital treatment. The police reportedly failed to respond adequately to complaints lodged by the congregation and the victims were unable to achieve justice through the Georgian courts. AI had at the time and subsequently urged a comprehensive and impartial investigation into the attack, to bring the perpetrators to justice. On 29 June 2001 members of the congregation lodged a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights regarding the October 1999 attack. The October 1999 attack was one in a series of violent attacks against religious minorities that peaked in the years from 1999 to 2003. Many of the perpetrators of these attacks have not been brought to justice. The European Court of Human Rights found violations with regard to Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading Amnesty International 51 treatment), Article 9 (right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion) and Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the European Convention on Human Rights. With regard to the violation of Article 3 the Court noted that “the police refused to intervene promptly at the scene of the incident to protect the applicants concerned, and the children of certain of their number, from ill-treatment […] and that the applicants were subsequently faced with total indifference on the part of the relevant authorities who, for no valid reason, refused to apply the law in their case.” The Court ordered the authorities of Georgia to pay compensation to the victims and to cover legal costs. This is the first ruling in a total of four cases the Jehovah’s Witnesses have submitted to the European Court of Human Rights on violent attacks in Georgia. The case of Sandro Girgvliani (update to AI Index: EUR 56/002/2007) Sandro Girgvliani died in January 2006 as a result of severe beatings by officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs at the cemetery of the village of Okrokana near the capital, Tbilisi. On 6 July that year Tbilisi City Court sentenced four officers to terms of imprisonment for causing his death. On 11 December Tbilisi Appeal Court upheld the sentences. In the period under review there continued to be allegations that the police officers who beat Sandro Girgvliani acted on the orders of senior officials of the Interior Ministry. Non-governmental sources alleged that the authorities covered up the crime of those senior officials. Reportedly, no thorough and independent investigation was carried out into the allegations. Among those in favour of constructively addressing doubts raised by the public about the way the authorities had dealt with Sandro Girgvliani’s death was Nino Burdzhanadze, Speaker of Parliament and a leader of the ruling party. On 13 February, she was reported by the online magazine Civil Georgia as stating at a session of Parliament the same day that “it is of AI Index: EUR 01/010/2007