The letter published on Khatuna Kalmakhelidze’s Facebook, who is the former minister of Corrections and Legal Assistance, turned out to be shocking for most of the people. We are offering some excerpts concerning the spread of videos showing the torture of inmates: ‘If I were shown the shots in due time, I assure you, I would raise panic immediately, in direct meaning of the word, and who knows how many people would be spared of such situations. The day when the recordings were shown, I was completely non-functional, offended and hurt.’
In its turn, Khatuna Kalmakhelidze’s long letter proved unexplainable and shocking for the public. The letter also revealed that during her term of the minister, the prison stuff were trained and taught ‘to use minimal force, control aggression and communicate effectively’. The events that unfolded later, showed who was the master of what.
One more episode of the letter from which I learnt that allegedly Mrs. Khatuna was spending her own money to buy books for the prisoners, was shocking for me. Actually, during her being the minister ‘Palitra L’ publisher was in vain striving for a long time to gain the right of charity to present the prison library fresh and selected books and it was exactly the ministry of Corrections and Legal Assistance and the department that didn’t allow them to have that right. And now, the Mrs. ex-minister wants us to believe that she used to spend her own money to buy books for the inmates?! Any way the letters in the ‘Kviris Palitra’ – ‘Let prisoners read books’ and ‘Let press and books into prisons’ were published with the aim to inform broader public about the existing problem. We remember well the question sent to personal phones and email of the Ministry representatives: Why don’t you let ‘Palitra L’ implement charity? Nobody responded. So the only thing left was to reciprocate the issue through newspapers. In one of the articles we even noted: ‘It seems the minister takes the prisoners for defective people! The system of corrections thinks the food cooked on combined fat and lying in bed in turns correspond to European standard and reading of books is luxury. In this case the only thing left is to call on them, ‘Let the inmates read books!’
But now, miracle be! In her trumpeted letter Mrs. Khatuna writes: ‘We always tried to equip the library with books. More than once I and my deputies collected money to buy books (?!)’
Speaking honestly, we don’t know what forced the ex-minister write these words but when the ‘Country of Lies’ is collapsing isn’t it possible for them to look the truth into the eyes at least from the ruins?