Georgian Institute of Politics (GIP) would like to issue a statement regarding locking down Marneuli and Bolnisi municipalities and declaring them as quarantine zones due to the threat of spreading the Coronavirus throughout the country. The organization calls the local society for keeping the social distance and following the instructions of the state in order to avoid outbreak of Covid19.
GIP considers unacceptable hate speech that is used by some of the members of the Georgian society against the local ethnic and religious minorities. Society has to express solidarity and high responsibility towards the co-citizens being under the threat regardless of their gender, ethnic and religious belonging.
Considering the fact that the vast majority of the local citizens do not know Georgian language and also face problems in term of accessing information, GIP believes that the state needs to effectively and timely provide them with the information about the threat of the virus, its symptoms and the prevention rules in the languages the locals are proficient in.
Please see the detailed information about Coronavirus in the English language – https://bit.ly/2QH359o
The statement is available in Armenian and Azerbaijani languages.